LIBRARY 

University   of 

California 

Irvine 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

IRVINE 

GIFT  OF 

John  Dodge 


JESS 

BITS   OF  WAYSIDE   GOSPEL 


JESS 


BITS     OF    WAYSIDE    GOSPEL 


BY 

JENKIN   LLOYD   JONES 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

LONDON  :  MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LTD. 
1899 

All  rigbtt  rtttrved 


IBV 

4310 

OG 


COPYRIGHT,    1899, 
BY   THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotypcd  July,  1899.    Reprinted  December, 
1899. 


Norwood  Press 

J.  S.  Cashing  &f  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


H.  M.  S. 

THE    GENIAL    COMPANION    AND    OPEN-EYED 
INTERPRETER    OF    THE    WAYSIDE 


"3Long  fjafce  E  looeti  fofjat  I  fcefyilb, 

nigfjt  tfjat  calms,  tfje  bag  tfjat  c^eera; 

common  groirit!)  of  mother  eartfj 
Suffices  me  —  ^er  tears,  fjer  mtrt^, 
mtrtJj  anti  tears. 


2Tf)e  fcragon's  iuing,  tfje  magic  ring, 
3E  sfjall  not  cofaet  for  mg  ooiner, 
If  I  along  tljat  lotolg  inag 

sgmpat^etfc  fjeart  mag  strag, 
toit^  a  soul  of  potocr." 

WILLIAM   WORDSWORTH. 


QERMONS,  all  of  them,  but  sermons  found  out  of 
**-*  doors  during  the  occupied  vacancies  miscalled 
"  vacations."  They  were  once  delivered  to  a  Chicago 
audience,  and  are  now  redelivered  to  a  reading  audience 
in  the  hope  of  quickening  a  love  for  Nature  in  her 
everyday  and  near  aspects,  for  the  Human  Nature  that 
is  always  at  hand,  and  for  the  Science  that  translates 
these  near  marvels  into  near  beauties  and  high  duties, 
emphasizing  thereby  the  Religion  which  includes  all 
those  that  love  and  serve. 

Acknowledgments  are  due  Miss  Evelyn  H.  Walker 
of  the  Publication  Committee  of  All  Souls  Church, 
without  whose  painstaking  labor  these  manuscripts 
could  not  have  been  prepared  for  the  press,  and  to  the 
Publishers  whose  copyrighted  poems  are  here  used. 

J.  LI.  J. 


Contents 

CHAPTER  JACK 

I.     Jess .          i 

(June,  1894) 

II.     Realizing  Life      .          .         .         .         .         .39 

(September,  1889) 

III.  A  Dinner  of  Herbs       .....       67 

(November,  1890) 

IV.  A  Quest  for  the  Unattainable  .          .  95 

(June,  1890) 

V.     The  River  of  Life         .         .          .         .         .119 

(September,  1891) 

VI.     Earth's  Fulness     .          .          .         .         .         .149 

(September,  1884) 

VII.     Spiritual  Values  of  Country  and  City         .         .      171 

(September,  1895) 

VIII.     The  Religion  of  the  Bird's  Nest       .          .         .209 

(September,  1897) 


PAGE 


IX.      Near  to  the  Heart  of  Nature  .          .          .          .237 
(September,  1896) 

X.      The  Peace  of  God         .....      259 

(September,  1891) 

XI.     The  Uplands  of  the  Spirit       .         .          .         .293 

(September,  1885) 


JESS 


"  God  made  all  the  creatures  and  gave  them  our  love  and  our 

fear, 

To  give  sign,  we  and  they  are  his  children,  one  family  here. 
*****  * 

«« What,  my  soul  ?   see  thus  far  and  no  farther  ?  when  doors 

great  and  small, 
Nine-and-ninety  flew  ope  at  our  touch,  should  the  hundredth 

appal?" 

ROBERT  BROWNING. 


JESS 

IN  the  June  of  1889,  some  of  the  friends  with 
whom  I  have  taken  many  an  excursion  into  the 
fertile  fields  of  literature  and  up  the  easier  hill- 
slopes  of  science,  —  with  whom  it  is  still  my 
privilege  to  work,  and  for  whom  I  am  glad  to 
grow  old,  —  startled  me  with  a  kindness  that,  for 
the  time  being,  may  I  confess,  seemed  a  burden- 
some token  of  affection.  They  presented  me 
with  a  purse,  accompanied  with  the  imperative 
command,  "  Go,  get  thee  a  horse."  This  was 
opening  a  closed  door  in  my  heart.  It  was  arous- 
ing abandoned  dreams  and  suggesting  forbidden 
pleasures.  It  came  like  the  sweet,  high  temptation 
that  disturbs  the  cloistered  retirement  of  the  vol- 
untary exile  of  him  who  has  fled  the  world  that 
he  might  serve  it.  I,  who  was  born  and  bred  on 
the  farm,  who  had  had  childhood  companionship 
with  horses,  and  who,  during  my  three  years'  ex- 
perience in  the  artillery  service,  had  learned  the 
comradeship  possible  between  a  soldier  and  his 


4  JESS 

horse,  now  resented  in  my  heart  as  a  forbid- 
den pleasure,  a  dangerous  concession  to  the  pleas- 
ure-loving side  of  my  life,  the  prospect  of  a 
saddle-horse  all  my  own.  It  was  a  luxury  not 
becoming  to  me,  an  indulgence  which  I  felt  I 
could  not  afford,  either  in  point  of  time  or  in  point 
of  money.  But  there  was  no  alternative  left  me, 
and  I  went  in  quest  of  my  "  white  elephant." 

What  solemn  weeks  were  those  in  which  I  went 
jockeying  from  stable  to  stable,  from  one  auction 
sale  to  another ;  how  attentive  the  dealers  became, 
how  ready  they  were  to  serve.  At  almost  any 
hour  of  any  day  a  saddle-horse  might  be  seen  in 
front  of  my  study  door,  a  horse  sent  around  by 
some  dealer,  "  thinking  I  might  like  him." 
Questions  of  color,  size,  and  gait  became  absorb- 
ing ones.  There  were  several  which  my  judgment 
approved.  But  early  in  the  quest  a  six-year-old 
mare,  a  little  undersized,  but  alert,  clean-limbed, 
supple,  nervous,  albeit  of  the  gentle,  cosseting 
kind,  had  captured  my  heart.  I  tried  to  choose 
some  one  of  the  other  horses,  because  this  one 
was  too  expensive,  too  spirited;  in  short,  too  much 
to  my  liking.  From  the  first,  though  greatly  ex- 
cited to  find  herself  in  the  noise  of  a  great  city,  at 
the  end  of  the  alarming  tortures  of  a  railroad  ride, 


JESS  5 

she  seemed  to  confide  in  me.  The  experimental 
rides  were  very  promising,  and,  after  three  weeks 
of  resistance,  judgment  surrendered  to  affection, 
and  the  proud,  timid,  alert  little  creature  was 
mine.  In  memory  of  an  earlier  love,  a  favorite 
of  the  farm  home,  she  was  named  "  Jess,"  a  name 
suggestive  of  the  political  campaign  of  1 856.  The 
name  written  long  would  be  "  Jessie  Fremont," 
that  of  the  admired  wife  of  the  mountain  path- 
finder. 

In  two  days  Jess  and  I  started  out  on  our  first 
tramp.  We  soon  understood  each  other.  I  think 
the  affection  was  mutual.  We  had  not  been  on 
the  road  three  hours  before  I  discovered  that  she 
had  adopted  me  as  I  had  her.  We  rested  each 
other  often  by  my  breaking  the  ride  with  long 
walks.  I  found  that  she  needed  no  leading 
strings ;  faithful  as  a  dog,  she  followed  wherever 
I  went.  Hundreds  of  miles,  during  the  four 
years  of  our  summer  companionship,  she  followed 
me  without  word  or  bridle.  Often  in  my  musings 
I  would  forget  all  about  my  silent  companion ; 
suddenly  recalling  myself,  I  would  look  around, 
wondering  whether  she  had  resented  the  neglect 
and  abandoned  me ;  but  always  she  was  close  at 
hand.  Sometimes  she,  too,  would  be  lost  in 


6  JESS 

revery,  would  forget  her  surroundings,  and  would 
be  found  dreaming  along,  four,  five,  or  more  rods 
behind.  Sometimes  an  occasional  bush  or  bough 
would  cause  her  to  turn  aside  for  a  mouthful, 
but  never  would  she  so  far  forget  her  obligations 
as  to  stoop  for  a  mouthful  of  grass,  although  she 
always  might.  But  when  I  stopped,  thus  awak- 
ening her  to  a  consciousness  of  time  and  place, 
like  a  delinquent  child  she  would  quicken  her 
step,  hasten  to  me  and  place  her  head  on  my 
shoulder  in  gentle  reconciliation.  Jess  had  a 
timid  nature ;  she  was  often  afraid,  always  ap- 
prehensive, but  she  seldom  lost  her  self-control 
while  on  the  road,  and  was  always  strengthened 
by  my  presence.  In  the  country  the  big  bould- 
ers by  the  roadside  were  always  uncanny  mon- 
strosities to  her,  but  she  never  doubted  my 
wisdom  when  driving  or  riding,  and  always 
trusted  my  leading  when  walking. 

It  was  touching  to  note  her  desire  to  be  close 
to  me  when  in  the  neighborhood  of  these  weird 
fragments  of  old  and  remote  formations,  witnesses 
of  awful  upheavals  and  strange  glacial  transpor- 
tation. When  the  rocks  were  very  big  and  the 
road  was  very  rough,  she  would  press  me  hard, 
as  if  beseeching  me  to  mount  her  that  we  might 


JESS  7 

become  the  six-limbed  centaur,  two  animals  with 
one  consciousness,  a  double  organism  with  one 
will,  competent  to  cope  with  whatever  goblins 
might  spring  from  the  supernatural  world.  She 
was  always  grateful  for  the  privilege  of  carrying 
me  through  ominous  places.  It  was  safer  thus, 
she  must  have  thought.  I  shall  never  forget 
the  illustration  of  trust  she  manifested  when  we 
first  crossed  the  Blue  Mounds,  one  of  our  favor- 
ite haunts.  This  is  one  of  Wisconsin's  few 
mildly-successful  approaches  to  mountain  scenery. 
I  made  the  ascent  on  foot,  consulting  her  com- 
fort. The  road  is  neither  very  difficult  nor  very 
rugged,  and  in  an  hour  I  was  at  the  top.  But 
to  my  surprise  I  found  that  the  poor  creature 
to  whom  I  had  given  no  thought,  no  word  of 
recognition  or  touch  of  sympathy,  was  with  me 
on  the  summit,  dripping  with  sweat  and  trem- 
bling with  excitement.  It  was  a  cool  afternoon, 
but  there  was  not  a  dry  hair  on  her.  What  had 
been  an  exhilaration  to  me  had  been  intense  ex- 
citement to  my  faithful  friend.  How  welcome 
was  my  word  and  how  reassuring  was  my  touch  ! 
The  descent  was  through  the  wooded  density 
of  the  west  face,  as  the  ascent  had  been  over  the 
rocky  nakedness  of  the  east.  My  heart  is  moved 


8  JESS 

at  this  hour  when  I  think  of  the  comfort  I  was 
able  to  give  that  sensitive  creature  by  simply 
carrying  the  bridle-rein  on  my  arm  as  we  de- 
scended. How  subtle  are  the  currents  of  sym- 
pathy! upon  what  slender  wires  are  the  electric 
currents  of  companionship  transmitted !  Jess 
was  timid,  but  trustful ;  she  had  many  a  faithless 
moment,  but  her  faithfulness  never  deserted  her, 
and  so  she  exemplified  the  faith  we  all  should 
seek  —  the  Faith  that  makes  Faithful. 

Jess  was  obedient,  but  not  because  she  had 
no  will  to  subdue,  no  tempestuous  purposes  and 
longings  of  her  own.  She  had  a  strong  head, 
and  she  knew  as  well  as  any  horse  of  character 
what  it  was  to  take  the  "  bit  in  her  teeth  "  ;  and 
a  few  times  in  our  intercourse,  and  many  times 
in  her  dealings  with  others,  it  came  to  a  clear 
question  of  strength  as  to  whether  the  one  who 
held  the  reins  or  the  one  who  held  the  bit  should 
win.  In  our  travelling  I  think  we  both  found 
much  amusement  in  trying  to  discover  one  an- 
other's will.  And  now  as  I  look  back  upon 
that  silent  companionship,  it  gives  me  great  pleas- 
ure to  think  how  often  I  was  able  to  respect  her 
will,  as  she  always  respected  mine  when  it  was 
clearly  understood.  How  many  a  time,  as  we 


JESS  9 

jogged  along,  did  she  halt  at  the  cross-roads  for 
the  almost  imperceptible  hint,  with  knee  ol 
bridle-rein,  or  the  slightest  declension  of  the 
body,  as  to  which  of  the  two  roads  we  would 
take.  And  many  times  also  did  we  come  to  the 
parting  of  the  ways  at  which  Jess  had  a  decided 
opinion  as  to  the  proper  way  to  go,  and  great 
was  my  pleasure  when  I  might  respect  her  opin- 
ion in  the  matter. 

Broadly  speaking,  Jess  was  more  highly  civil- 
ized than  I  was,  at  least  in  the  months  of  July 
and  August.  Of  two  roads  she  always  preferred 
the  one  that  led  into  the  haunts  of  human  nature, 
while  I  preferred  the  shady  glens  of  nature.  She 
preferred  a  well-graded  highway ;  I  loved  the 
winding  cow-paths  and  the  grass-grown  byways. 
Jess  was  always  cheered  by  the  sight  of  a  village, 
and  her  spirits  came  up  when  once  within  the 
limits  of  a  town.  In  the  country  she  took  the 
easy  and  natural  trot,  and  I,  somewhat  accus- 
tomed to  Browning's  verse  and  Whitman's  lines, 
found  her  rhythmic  trot  exhilarating  and  alto- 
gether comfortable ;  but  once  in  the  town,  she 
would  always  assume  the  purely  artificial,  the 
acquired  skill  of  the  "  single-foot." 

Jess  early  learned  the  providence  of  the  wind- 


io  JESS 

mill  in  our  western  landscape,  and  half  a  mile 
away  I  have  known  her  to  quicken  her  pace  with 
the  prospect  of  the  cooling  draught  suggested  by 
the  distant  spectre  that,  like  a  great  animated  but- 
terfly, opened  its  wings  to  the  summer  breeze. 
Disappointed  was  she  if  the  gate  was  closed,  but 
she  would  promptly  try  to  take  the  position 
which  would  enable  her  rider  to  open  the  gate 
without  dismounting.  It  was  a  long  mental 
process  for  the  poor  horse's  brain  to  connect 
the  clatter  of  the  wheel  above  with  the  cooling 
draught  in  the  trough  below,  but  she  finally 
made  the  connection,  and  would  wait  when  nec- 
essary, with  fear  and  trembling,  the  starting  of 
the  mill.  She  always  felt  like  running  away,  but 
never  quite  did,  and  when  the  water  came  she 
would  cautiously  but  gratefully  venture  to  drink. 
But  I  am  sure  she  was  always  thankful  when  she 
found  that  the  pumping  had  been  done  before 
she  arrived.  She  was  always  pleased  when  I,  too, 
drank,  and  was  disappointed  if  I  did  not  dis- 
mount at  a  spring  to  drink  with  her.  When  I 
bathed  my  hands  and  face,  she  too  would  plunge 
her  nose  deep  in  and  revel  in  the  bath.  When 
we  reached  the  stream,  if  I  would  only  dismount 
she  would  gladly  refresh  herself  by  lying  down 


JESS  ii 

in    it,    quite    unmindful    of  the    dry-goods    that 
might  be  attached  to  the  saddle. 

I  said  that  Jess  had  a  will  of  her  own.  Only 
once  in  all  our  intercourse  did  this  become  a 
wilfulness  that  triumphed  over  the  spirit  of  obe- 
dience. She  had  espied  the  windmill  afar  off; 
we  had  already  made  our  twenty  miles,  and  it 
was  nearing  noon.  We  were  both  thinking  of 
dinner.  We  stopped  to  drink  near  a  magnificent 
barn,  but  a  miserable  house.  The  barn  door  was 
open.  The  air  was  fragrant  with  the  smell  of 
new-mown  hay,  but  the  aroma  from  the  kitchen 
was  not  so  inspiring.  The  outlook  for  Jess  was 
most  satisfactory ;  for  her  rider  it  was  dubious, 
and  he  concluded  to  push  on.  To  the  intense 
disappointment  of  his  silent  companion,  he  started 
on  afoot.  Without  a  word  of  apology  or  com- 
mand he  passed  out  of  the  yard,  through  the 
gate,  into  the  road,  and  then  looked  back.  Jess 
had  not  started;  she  was  looking  wistfully  into 
the  barn.  I  spoke  to  her ;  she  shook  her  head 
impatiently,  and  took  a  few  steps  toward  the  barn. 
I  called  authoritatively.  It  was  a  critical  mo- 
ment ;  the  haymakers  were  watching  us  with  an 
amused  expectation  that  I  would  have  to  back 
down  and  return  for  my  horse.  I  started  on 


12  JESS 

down  the  road,  and  to  their  surprise  and  my 
great  relief,  Jess,  with  drooping  head  and  spirit- 
less gait,  reluctantly  turned  to  the  road  and  fol- 
lowed, like  a  sulky  child,  a  long  way  behind. 

All  this  while  I  felt  that  the  outcome  was  still 
dubious,  but  I  walked  on,  hoping  she  would  for- 
get the  barn.  A  hot  quarter  of  a  mile  of  dusty 
road,  and  then  came  the  shady  woods  at  the 
edge  of  which  I  meant  to  mount  and  hurry  along 
to  wherever  our  dinner  might  be.  Jess  was  a 
long  way  behind,  six  or  eight  rods.  When  I 
stopped  she  stopped,  and  when  I  spoke,  instead 
of  the  usual  prompt  response  she  shook  her 
head.  We  stood  a  full  minute,  both  suffering 
acutely  from  different  anxieties.  I  did  not  want 
to  be  beaten,  or  to  lose  my  horse  ;  she  did  not 
want  to  disobey,  neither  did  she  want  to  lose  her 
dinner.  I  called  in  vain,  and  when  I  started  to 
go  toward  her  the  scales  turned,  and  the  strong 
will  of  the  horse  triumphed ;  she  turned,  and 
with  a  brisk  trot  retraced  the  quarter  of  a  mile 
of  dusty  road  and  entered  the  barn  unbidden. 
I  followed  sheepishly,  too  much  amused  to  be 
angry.  The  farmer  greeted  me  afar  with  a  jeer, 
"That's  the  time  you  got  left,  sir,  I  think."  I 
thought  Jess  would  restore  something  of  my  self- 


JESS  13 

respect  by  appearing  guilty  and  somewhat  afraid 
of  me,  but  there  were  no  signs  of  either.  With 
her  mouth  full  of  delicious  clover  she  turned  her 
bright  eyes  upon  me  in  perfect  satisfaction,  and 
said  as  plainly  as  a  horse  could  say  :  "  Don't  be  a 
fool,  now.  Take  this  bit  out  of  my  mouth,  and 
you  go  and  get  your  dinner."  Contrary  to  all 
rules  of  horsemanship,  I  did  not  punish,  and  I 
did  not  have  my  own  way,  but  gracefully  sur- 
rendered and  took  Jess's  advice.  The  confident 
way  in  which  she  banked,  not  only  on  my  good 
sense  but  also  my  good  nature,  is  a  source  of 
pride  and  satisfaction  to  me  to  this  day. 

Says  Colonel  Dodge  of  the  United  States  ser- 
vice, "  Never  solicit  a  battle  with  a  horse,  but 
when  it  is  on  never  give  up  unless  you  want  to 
lose  your  power  over  that  horse  ever  after."  I 
violated  the  colonel's  rule.  The  penalty  did  not 
follow.  Jess  and  I  never  alluded  to  that  affair 
again,  and  I  think  our  mutual  respect  was  in- 
creased by  the  experience.  A  thousand  similar 
temptations  came  afterward.  She  followed  me 
for  hundreds  of  miles  under  trying  circumstances, 
but  she  never  deserted  me  again,  never  disap- 
pointed me  or  betrayed  my  trust.  My  pathway 
through  life  has  been  lined  with  friends  good 


14  JESS 

and  true,  helpers  faithful  and  loyal.  I  am  un- 
grateful to  none  of  them  when  I  put  my  loving 
and  loyal  Jess,  the  silent  companion  of  the  road, 
to  whom  I  could  give  so  little,  from  whom  I  re- 
ceived so  much,  alongside  of  and  with  the  most 
faithful  friends  of  my  life. 

I  wish  I  could  prove  what  is  so  clear  to  me, 
that  this  trust  of  Jess  which  overcame  her  fear, 
that  this  loyalty  which  directed  and  often  over- 
came her  ardent  and  impulsive  desires  and  wishes, 
was  rooted  in  intelligence.  There  is  no  more  ex- 
ploded and  unphilosophic  distinction  in  all  the 
realms  of  psychology  than  the  old  distinction 
between  instinct  and  reason,  by  means  of  which 
man  flatters  himself  with  an  imaginary  chasm  be- 
tween himself  and  the  brute.  Was  it  not  an  act 
of  judgment,  aye,  a  long  process  of  reasoning,  that 
connected  the  windmill  with  the  water,  that  over- 
came the  terror  of  the  clatter  and  gave  her  courage 
to  wait  while  the  pump  was  doing  its  work  ? 

When  I  first  began  to  ride  her,  my  third  leg, 
the  indispensable  cane  that  pieces  out  an  ankle 
with  an  army  memory,  was  a  great  annoyance  to 
her,  an  ever  present  menace.  But  there  came  a 
time  when  she  realized  that  the  cane  was  of  ser- 
vice to  me  and  no  harm  to  her,  and  many  a  time 


JESS  15 

have  I  been  reminded  of  my  carelessness  by  her 
unwillingness  to  start  while  my  cane  was  left  on 
the  ground ;  often  did  she  remind  me  that  I  had 
thoughtlessly  dropped  it,  by  stopping  abruptly  in 
the  road  and  waiting  for  me  to  discover  my  loss 
and  regain  my  property.  Once  I  remember  she 
broke  from  her  easy  gait  into  an  abrupt  halt.  I 
rebuked  her,  man  fashion,  and  urged  her  on.  She 
moved  with  stiff  and  reluctant  step,  her  ears 
turned  back  in  manifest  displeasure.  She  was 
loath  to  resume  the  springing  gait  which  usually 
made  her  back  so  delightful.  I  thought  she  was 
getting  lame,  and  looked  to  her  shoes.  Some 
time  after  this,  when  I  had  forgotten  her  dis- 
comfort, I  suddenly  discovered  that  my  overcoat 
was  missing  from  the  cantle  of  my  saddle.  It 
was  evident  that  she  had  not  yet  forgotten  it. 
With  a  glad  "  I  told  you  so  "  air,  she  accepted 
my  slightest  invitation  to  retrace  her  steps,  some- 
thing which  under  ordinary  circumstances  she 
never  could  respect,  and  with  eager,  far-reaching 
strides  she  covered  the  intervening  half-mile  or 
more  and  brought  up  with  a  toss  of  her  head 
beside  the  bundle,  of  which  she  would  have  been 
very  suspicious  if  she  had  not  known  perfectly 
well  what  it  was. 


16  JESS 

Once,  and  once  only,  before  I  had  "  found  my 
seat,"  as  horsemen  say,  and  we  had  become  the 
two  animals  with  one  consciousness,  or,  rather, 
the  one  animal  with  the  body  of  a  horse  and  the 
head  of  a  man,  Jess's  back  grew  sore  under  the 
saddle.  A  liveryman  at  Woodstock,  Illinois, 
gave  us  a  piece  of  old  linen  to  wear  under  the 
saddle-blanket.  It  proved  cooling  and  comfort- 
able. We  wore  it  for  two  or  three  weeks,  and 
Jess  resented  the  saddle  without  it.  It  was  not 
until  after  several  attempts  to  leave  the  cloth  be- 
hind, and  I  was  perfectly  sure  it  was  no  longer 
necessary,  that  I  had  the  hardihood  to  act 
against  her  judgment.  Two  years  afterward  I 
was  in  the  same  town  again,  driving  her  this  time 
in  harness.  She  found  her  way  directly  to  that 
stable  on  a  back  street,  and  when  unhitched  went 
straight  to  the  stall  wherein  the  healing  linen  was 
applied.  Perhaps  she  missed,  as  I  did,  the  good 
Samaritan  that  poured  oil  on  her  wounds. 

When  driving,  it  was  my  habit  always  to  walk 
up  the  steep  hills,  and  when  riding  to  walk  down 
them.  Jess  early  learned  the  propriety  of  this 
procedure.  With  the  carriage  she  would  always 
stop  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  to  invite  me  out, 
and  with  the  saddle  she  would  stop  at  the  top  to 


JESS  17 

let  me  down ;  and  she  never  reversed  her  invi- 
tations. 

She  certainly  had  a  remembering  heart.  Once, 
while  waiting  for  a  ferry  in  the  bottom  woods  of 
the  Wisconsin  River,  we  were  terribly  assailed  by 
the  mosquitoes,  so  vigorous  at  sunset.  I  cut  a 
big  brush,  needing  both  hands  to  handle  it,  and 
I  lashed  her  with  it,  while  she,  the  nervous  crea- 
ture that  usually  jumped  at  the  crackling  of  the 
smallest  switch,  gratefully  rubbed  her  nose  against 
my  face.  Ever  after,  when  mosquitoes  bothered, 
she  would  carry  me  under  the  first  convenient 
tree  and  stop  for  me  to  cut  the  brush. 

But  enough  has  been  said  to  show  how  gentle 
were  her  ways  to  me,  how  real  was  the  intimacy 
between  us.  I  have  called  it  a  silent  companion- 
ship, but  it  was  not  silent  on  my  part.  When 
we  were  alone  on  the  road  I  talked  to  her  much. 
I  sang  to  her  and  shouted  to  her.  I  do  not  think 
she  understood  what  I  said ;  I  am  quite  sure  she 
understood  why  I  said  it.  She  may  not  have  un- 
derstood my  words,  but  I  know  she  understood 
my  noise,  and  liked  it.  She  was  a  single  rider 
horse.  No  one  ever  found  her  quite  the  saddle- 
beast  she  came  to  be  to  me.  I  am  no  expert 
horseman,  but  I  did  give  to  her  gentle  handling, 


1 8  JESS 

a  uniform  and  firm  hand,  and  what  was  more,  I 
presumed  much  on  her  intelligence.  I  trusted  to 
her  honor  and  she  did  not  betray  me.  She  re- 
sponded to  the  call  from  above.  Perhaps  all 
sentient  beings  are  more  ready  to  do  that  than 
we  know. 

During  the  World's  Fair  summer,  Jess  was 
happy  in  the  horse's  terrestrial  paradise,  a  clover 
field  with  running  waters.  She  was  buoyant 
with  life,  overflowing  with  spirits,  ready  for 
another  campaign  through  the  woods  and  over 
the  hills,  wherever  and  whenever  her  human 
comrade  liked  to  go.  In  an  exuberant  moment 
that  marvellous  frame,  so  responsive,  so  agile, 
so  electric,  gave  itself  to  play.  In  a  wild 
scamper  she  flew  down  the  steep  hillside,  around 
the  field  and  up  to  the  barn.  And  lo,  when  the 
man  appeared,  Jess  was  holding  up  one  delicate 
foreleg,  clean  and  smooth  as  a  sword-blade.  She 
whinnied  pitifully.  Every  nerve  was  quivering 
with  pain.  I  was  busy  working  in  the  great  city 
of  Chicago,  for  the  time  being  the  capital  city  of 
the  world,  the  audience  chamber  of  humanity,  the 
great  cathedral  of  universal  religion.  During  the 
next  four  weeks  of  great  suffering  and  tender 
nursing  I  heard  but  little  of  her.  Kind  hearts 


JESS  19 

stood  between  my  heart  and  its  pain,  but  at  last 
I  learned  that  Jess  was  getting  no  better  and 
suffering  much,  and  so  I  left  my  hurrying  work 
in  the  busy  crowds  and  went  to  see  my  poor 
friend. 

In  the  very  early  morning,  when  the  world 
was  all  fresh  and  the  fields  cool  with  dew,  I 
found  her  blanketed,  lying  on  the  lawn,  stretched 
at  full  length,  breathing  heavily,  suffering  much. 
She  was  pitiably  emaciated.  Her  poor  body  was 
covered  with  bed-sores  and  the  knee  terribly 
swollen  and  throbbing.  As  I  approached  she 
lifted  a  languid  head  and  dropped  it  again.  I 
spoke,  and  this  time  the  head  came  up  more 
quickly,  the  eye  brightened  with  the  old  light 
of  reciprocation  and  tenderness,  and  she  curved 
her  neck  for  the  caress.  I  plucked  some  fresh 
clover  ;  she  ate  it  from  my  hand  and  seemed  for 
a  moment  to  forget  her  pain.  Perhaps  a  flush  of 
hope  came  into  both  hearts,  but  it  was  only  for 
an  instant.  The  hardest  thing  to  bear  was  to 
think  of  the  month  of  intense  and  useless  suffer- 
ing she  had  endured.  Within  two  hours  the 
kindly  bullet  had  brought  the  end. 

A  post-mortem  examination  of  the  knee 
showed  that  the  marvellous  mechanism,  the 


20  JESS 

wonderful  adjustment,  had  been  hopelessly 
marred ;  the  curiously-wrought  knee-cap,  or 
that  which  answers  for  it  in  the  horse's  anat- 
omy, had  been  cracked,  broken  in  a  dozen 
pieces.  It  was  evident  that  the  thousand 
pounds,  moving  with  such  terrible  momentum 
down  the  steep  hill,  had  been  stopped  by  the 
agile  will  and  prompt  nervous  system  with 
such  playful  abruptness  that  it  had  cracked  the 
bones  in  the  leg  as  a  child  cracks  a  hickory  nut. 

I  never  knew  how  fast  Jess  could  go.  I 
never  wanted  to  know.  Doubtless,  before  I 
knew  her  she  had  speed  enough  to  tempt  the 
trainer,  but  probably  falling  short  of  eminence 
in  that  direction,  she  was  allowed  to  fall  back 
into  a  more  benign  career,  and  thus  she  be- 
came mine.  But  in  the  end,  those  nerves  that 
were  more  delicate  than  watchsprings,  sinews 
strong  as  silk,  bones  as  fine  as  steel,  wrought 
her  undoing.  The  over-excellency  of  the  crea- 
ture brought  the  untimely  death.  Like  some 
quadrupedal  Keats,  she  died  from  too  much 
life.  She  went  down  to  pain  and  death  in  her 
over-sympathetic  youth. 

Under  the  over-arching  branches  of  a  splendid 
willow  we  buried  the  body  of  Jess,  and  that 


JESS  21 

which  in  life  made  the  human  heart  more  serene 
and  the  human  mind  more  receptive  has  deep- 
ened the  green  of  the  leaves  and  made  some- 
what more  hospitable  the  leafy  bowers  that  form 
the  home  haunts  of  singing  birds.  Other  wil- 
lows, gracious  and  noble,  hold  high  their  wavy 
branches  in  the  beautiful  valley,  but  to  me  at 
least  this  willow  is  invested  with  a  tenderness, 
bathed  with  a  beauty,  and  clothed  with  a  sugges- 
tiveness  denied  the  others. 

The  trees  and  the  flowers,  the  shaded  road- 
side, the  happy  cattle  in  the  clover  fields,  the 
morning  song  of  the  birds,  the  searching  and 
far-reaching  cry  of  the  whip-poor-will,  the  busy, 
kind,  human  folk,  are  still  left  for  me  in  my 
summer  haunts,  but  I  shall  ever  miss  that  silent 
companionship  that  for  four  summers  went  with 
me  over  the  hills  and  dales  of  Wisconsin, 
through  the  haunts  of  busy  men,  into  the  soli- 
tudes of  busier  nature.  Jess,  my  companion  of 
many  hundreds  of  miles  of  happy  travel,  will 
accompany  me  no  more  in  my  quest  for  bodily 
strength,  mental  clearness,  and  spiritual  peace. 
Her  elastic  step  will  not  disturb  the  morning 
dew ;  her  dainty  ear  will  not  catch  the  noonday 


22  JESS 

hum  of  the  reaper ;  her  alert  eye  will  not  scan 
the  evening  horizon  with  unfeigned  anxiety  to 
find  the  big  barn  or  the  country  hamlet  that 
would  give  us  the  hearty  meal  and  well-earned 
slumber  of  the  night.  Something  has  gone  out 
of  those  hills  and  valleys,  out  of  the  world, 
never  to  return.  But  Jess  abides,  at  least  in 
one  heart  made  more  open  to  fellowship,  more 
tender  to  suffering,  and  more  quick  to  feel  the 
woes  of  all  sentient  beings.  May  I  hope  she 
will  still  live  in  this  story  of  mine,  to  plead  with 
others  for  thoughtfulness  and  kindliness  to  that 
noble  animal,  the  horse  ? 

I  offer  no  apology  for  this  intrusion  upon 
your  attention  with  so  commonplace  a  theme  ;  in- 
deed, I  do  not  think  you  will  so  consider  it.  I 
believe  you  have  already  discovered  the  purpose 
of  this  narrative,  too  personal  though  it  may  be. 
I  have  told  it  because  I  would  fain  awaken 
through  it  a  deeper  appreciation  of  the  marvel- 
lous and  the  beautiful  revealed  in  the  horse, 
which  I  regard  as  one  of  the  noblest  products 
of  nature.  All  things  considered,  I  believe  that 
the  climax  of  animal  mechanism  among  quadru- 
peds is  reached  in  the  horse.  He  is  a  living 
dynamo,  a  battery  of  force,  accurate,  responsive, 


JESS  23 

intelligent,  loyal.  His  defence  lies  in  his  swift- 
ness. He  has  held  his  place  in  the  struggle  for 
existence  by  virtue  of  his  timidity,  and  yet  cow- 
boys and  cavalrymen  train  their  horses  so  that 
they  will  lie  down  and  let  their  masters  shoot 
over  them ;  so  that  they  will  carry  the  cannon 
before  whose  fire  they  learn  to  stand  unintimi- 
dated.  Well  does  the  Koran  call  the  horse  "a 
condensation  of  the  south-west  wind."  And  the 
same  book  represents  the  Deity  as  saying  to  the 
horse,  "  Thou  shalt  be  for  man  a  source  of  hap- 
piness and  wealth ;  thy  back  shall  be  a  seat  of 
honor,  and  thy  belly  of  riches ;  every  grain  of 
barley  given  to  thee  shall  purchase  indulgence 
for  the  sinner."  The  Arabian  legends  say,  "  The 
finest  horses  are  needed  in  heaven  to  carry  an- 
gels." In  the  Hebrew  legend,  fiery  horses  car- 
ried Elijah  to  the  sky.  Indeed,  we  must  turn 
to  the  high  poetry  of  the  Bible  to  find  the  finest 
description  of  this  noble  animal.  Note  the  in- 
comparable lines  of  Job : 

"Hast  thou  given  the  horse  strength  ? 
Hast  thou  clothed  his  neck  with  his  trembling  mane  ? 
Hast  thou  taught  him  to  bound  like  the  locust  ? 
How  majestic  his  snorting  !  how  terrible  ! 
He  paweth  in  the  valley  ;  he  cxulteth  in  his  strength, 


And  rusheth  into  the  midst  of  arms. 

He  laugheth  at  fear  ;  he  trembleth  not, 

And  turneth  not  back  from  the  sword. 

Against  him  rattle  the  quiver, 

The  flaming  spear,  and  the  lance. 

With  rage  and  fury  he  devoureth  the  ground ; 

He  will  not  believe  that  the  trumpet  soundeth. 

At  every  blast  of  the  trumpet,  he  saith,  Aha ! 

And  snuffeth  the  battle  afar  off,  — 

The  thunder  of  the  captains,  and  the  war- shout." 

Under  the  old  Saxon  law,  the  damage  caused 
by  destroying  a  horse  was  thirty  shillings ;  an 
ox,  thirty  pence ;  a  pig,  eightpence,  and  a  man, 
twenty  shillings.  In  the  laws  of  Hywel  dda, 
Howell-the-Good,  the  great  Cambrian  law-giver 
of  the  ninth  century,  there  were  penalties  for 
working  a  blistered  horse :  fourpence  when  the 
hair  was  rubbed  off,  eightpence  if  the  skin  was 
forced  into  the  flesh,  sixteenpence  if  the  flesh 
was  forced  to  the  bone.  Under  this  law  a  horse 
must  not  be  fastened  to  a  plough,  so  high  was  his 
dignity. 

How  interwoven  with  the  story  of  human 
valor  is  that  of  the  valiant  horse !  The  great 
Alexander,  the  conqueror  of  worlds,  fitted  him- 
self for  his  life's  work  by  breaking  colts.  The 
boy  tamed  the  high-mettled  Bucephalus  by  turn- 


JESS  25 

ing  his  head  from  his  own  shadow  and  giving 
him  the  road.  The  Cid,  the  indomitable,  pro- 
vided in  his  will  that  Bavieca,  his  old  charger, 
should  be  buried  in  a  deep  grave.  "  For,"  said 
he,  "  a  shameful  thing  it  were  that  he  should  be 
eaten  by  dogs."  It  was  a  horse  that  carried  the 
white-plumed  knight,  Henry  of  Navarre,  into 
the  thickest  of  the  fight.  Richard  the  Lion- 
hearted  had  his  "  White  Surrey,"  William  III. 
his  "  Sorrel,"  and  Wellington,  the  great  "  Iron 
Duke,"  had  his  "  Copenhagen."  General  Tay- 
lor rides  through  the  pages  of  history  on  "  Old 
Whitey."  Grant's  horse  was  trusted  next  to  his 
rider.  Robert  E.  Lee's  spirit  entered  into  his 
faithful  veteran  horse  "  Traveller,"  and  the  fame 
of  Phil  Sheridan  is  no  safer  than  that  of 

"The  steed  that  saved  the  day 
By  carrying  Sheridan  into  the  fight 
From  Winchester,  twenty  miles  away." 

And  still  the  horse  is  daily  abused,  overloaded, 
underfed,  beaten  by  cruel  drivers,  gagged,  nagged, 
and  maimed  by  women  whose  silliness  leads  to 
atrocities  as  brutal  as  those  of  the  drayman.  The 
inhumanities  of  the  docked  tail,  and  the  bar- 
barities of  the  over-check,  are  paraded  on  our 
boulevards  every  hour  of  the  day  by  so-called 


26  JESS 

gentlemen  and  gentlewomen,  proving  thereby 
their  empty  heads  and  cold  hearts  and  the  es- 
sential cruelties  of  "  polite  society." 

I  have  told  the  story  of  Jess,  hoping  that  it 
may  do  something  to  increase  a  sense  of  the 
sanctities  of  life,  all  life,  in  our  hearts.  Jess  is  no 
solitary  horse,  no  exceptional  one.  Dr.  Edward 
Emerson,  the  son  of  Ralph  Waldo,  riding  to  re- 
lieve suffering  in  a  cold,  dark,  and  stormy  night, 
found  his  horse  slipping  under  him.  They  both 
fell  into  the  ditch  from  which  the  horse  recovered 
himself,  while  the  rider  lay  there  with  a  broken 
leg.  But  the  faithful  animal  stood  there  in  the 
pitiless  storm  beside  his  helpless  master  until  the 
slow  relief  came.  When  General  Gillespie  of 
the  English  army  fell  in  the  Indian  war,  the 
privates  of  the  Eighth  Dragoons  bought  his  old 
horse,  and  he  always  marched  at  the  head  of  the 
regiment,  taking  his  stand  by  the  colors  and 
receiving  the  salute  on  review.  When  the  regi- 
ment was  ordered  home,  they  provided  a  com- 
fortable paddock  for  the  old  veteran,  but  when 
the  corps  was  gone  his  appetite  failed.  One  day 
he  broke  from  his  groom,  galloped  to  his  old 
position  on  the  parade  grounds,  neighed  aloud, 
dropped  down  and  died. 


JESS  27 

It  would  be  a  noticeable  and  unjustifiable 
omission  if  I  failed  in  this  connection  to  allude 
to  that  other  "  Jess "  who  has  come  to  warm 
the  hearts  of  all  readers  of  good  books,  since 
we  laid  the  bones  of  my  beloved  Jess  to  rest 
under  the  roots  of  the  gracious  willow.  Of 
course  I  refer  to  the  "Jess"  of  the  good  Scotch 
physician  of  the  countryside  of  whom  Ian  Mac- 
laren  has  told  us  in  "  The  Bonnie  Brier  Bush," 
that  most  human  and  humane  of  recent  books. 

"£A'  wadna  like  ye  tae  sell  Jess,  for  she's  been 
a  faithfu'  servant,  an'  a  freend  tae.  There's  a 
note  or  two  in  that  drawer  a'  savit,  an'  if  ye 
kent  ony  man  that  wud  gie  her  a  bite  o'  grass 
and  a  sta'  in  his  stable  till  she  followed  her 
maister,'  —  said  the  good  Doctor  McClure  on 
his  death-bed.  A  few  days  later,  as  the  coffin 
passed  the  stable  door,  a  horse  neighed  within, 
and  every  man  looked  at  his  neighbor.  It  was 
the  old  mare  crying  to  her  master.  Drumsheugh 
took  her  to  his  own  barn,  where  she  had  soft, 
dry  straw  to  lie  on  and  such  things  as  horses 
love  to  eat.  But  the  faithful  horse  languished, 
and  in  the  night-time  she  was  heard  crying  as  if 
she  expected  to  be  taken  out  for  some  sudden 
journey.  The  Kildrummie  veterinary  said  :  — 


28  JESS 

{ A've  seen  it  aince  afore.  Gin  she  were  a 
Chreestan  instead  o'  a  horse,  ye  micht  say  she 
wes  dying  o'  a  broken  hert.'  And  a  week  after 
the  good  Doctor  fell  on  sleep  Jess  was  resting 
at  last,  but  her  eyes  were  open  and  her  face  was 
turned  to  the  door." 

I  have  ventured  to  tell  these  stories  of  Jess 
and  her  peers,  hoping  they  will  help  us  to  real- 
ize that  this  kinship  with  all  sentient  beings  is 
a  part  of  the  modern  gospel  revealed  by  science 
and  foretold  by  the  most  ancient  prophecy,  the 
pitying  paganism  that  is  thoughtful  of  the  lower 
life,  and  gentle  toward  our  dumb  fellow-citizens 
in  this  commonwealth  of  the  Lord.  "  Aha  !  " 
sneered  the  Arab  at  the  cruelty  of  the  London 
horseman,  "  it  is  not  in  your  Book  not  to  hurt 
the  horse ! "  But  it  is  in  our  Book.  Does  it 
not  say,  "  A  merciful  man  is  merciful  to  his 
beast "  ?  But  we  do  not  live  up  to  the  Book. 

Finally,  I  have  told  the  story  of  Jess,  that  it 
might  suggest  that  subtle  thought  which  brings 
reassurance  to  the  human  soul  as  it  looks  for- 
ward into  the  mysteries  beyond.  I  know  not 
what  realities  await  us  ;  I  only  know  that  the 
qualities  upon  which  I  base  my  hope  of  immor- 
tality I  found  far  along  in  their  development  in 


JESS  29 

my  companion  of  the  road  and  the  many  humble 
acquaintances  we  made  together.  The  buoyant 
thrush,  singing  her  song  most  clearly  when  the 
stress  of  wind  and  fall  of  rain  is  upon  her,  is 
herself  an  "intimation  of  immortality,"  to  use 
Wordsworth's  great  phrase.  "  Love  me,  love  my 
dog,"  is  the  chivalric  demand  of  man  upon  his 
brother  man.  Some  of  these  days  this  will  be 
the  spiritual  demand  of  man  from  his  God.  I 
would  not  be  importunate  or  impatient ;  but  an 
immortality  that  leaves  out  the  singing,  loving 
world  below,  curtails  my  dream  and  hope  of  the 
serving,  thinking,  and  growing  world  beyond. 
When  Buffalo  Bill  buried  his  favorite  horse  at 
sea,  after  wrapping  him  around  with  the  Amer- 
ican flag,  rough  hands  wiped  the  tears  from 
cheeks  unfamiliar  to  that  dew  of  the  soul,  and 
the  gallant  scout  said  as  he  looked  at  his  old 
horse :  — 

"  Charley,  but  for  your  willing  speed  and  tire- 
less courage,  I  would  many  years  ago  have  lain 
low  as  you  are  now,  and  my  Indian  foe  would 
have  claimed  you  for  his  slave.  Yet  you  never 
failed  me,  Charley,  old  fellow.  I  have  had  many 
friends,  but  very  few  of  whom  I  would  say  that. 
Men  tell  me  you  have  no  soul,  but  if  there  be 


30  JESS 

a  heaven  and  scouts  can  enter  there,  I'll  wait  at 
the  gate  for  you,  old  friend." 

Here  is  no  irreverence,  no  profanation  of  the 
higher  hopes  or  tenderer  griefs  of  the  soul.  If 
our  lesser  loves  are  rudely  dealt  with,  the  more 
sacred  sanctities  of  the  human  heart  will  shortly 
be  profaned.  Surely,  — 

"  A  horse  misused  upon  the  road 
Calls  to  heaven  for  human  blood. 
Each  outcry  of  the  hunted  hare 
A  fibre  from  the  brain  doth  tear ; 
A  skylark  wounded  on  the  wing 
Doth  make  a  cherub  cease  to  sing." 

One  thing  is  sure,  and  that  is  worth  more  than 
the  question  of  immortality.  Such  sensibilities 
as  are  aroused  by  this  new  thought  of  universal 
comradeship  to  all  living  things,  will  make  life 
heavenly  with  or  without  heaven.  And  the  ab- 
sence of  these  sensibilities  will  make  life  earthly, 
sordid,  hellish,  no  matter  how  many  heavens  we 
may  go  to. 

Gentleness  and  sympathy  are  not  voluntary 
graces  which  the  soul  may  accept  or  refuse  at 
its  pleasure.  They  are  rather  the  exactions  of 
the  universe.  He  who  refuses  them  a  place 
in  his  life  cheats  God  and  debases  his  own  soul. 


JESS  31 

A  man  must  not  only  be  humane  to  his  wife, — 
he  has  gone  but  a  little  farther  than  the  brute 
if  he  has  not  got  farther  than  that,  —  but  he 
must  be  humane  to  his  hired  man,  his  cows,  his 
dog,  and  companionable  with  his  horse.  He 
must  recognize  the  rights  of  the  dumb  brutes 
of  the  barnyard,  he  must  realize  the  mighty 
sweep  of  that  law  of  rectitude  that  includes  the 
very  chickens  in  his  doorway  and  the  squirrels 
that  play  in  the  tree-tops.  Then  it  will  not  be 
difficult  to  protect  our  children  from  the  cruelties 
of  the  factory  and  our  women  from  the  degrada- 
tions of  the  sweat-shop.  The  Apocalyptic  dreams 
of  man  rest  upon  a  revelation  written  in  the  hum- 
ble text  of  the  kennel  and  the  dove-cote ;  aye, 
farther  down,  in  the  petals  of  the  lily,  the  roots 
of  the  rose.  Beneath  the  roots  in  the  clay  and 
sand  and  the  filtering  raindrop,  the  enlightened 
soul  reads  the  antediluvian  message  that  speaks 
of  the  primeval  sanctity  underneath  all  things, 
the  eternal  God  that  was,  is,  and  shall  be,  "  in 
whom  we  live,  move,  and  have  our  being." 

There  is  another  link  in  this  story  of  Jess 
which  I  give,  not  only  for  completeness'  sake, 
but  because  it  adds  another  illustration  of  the 


32  JESS 

silent  companionship  that  binds  man  to  beast, 
the  horse  to  his  rider.  For  many  years  I  have 
been  the  recipient  of  occasional  letters,  search- 
ing scraps  from  newspapers,  and  other  Teachings 
after  fellowship,  from  one  who  was  drawn  to  me 
through  the  columns  of  the  paper  it  is  my  task 
and  privilege  to  edit.  They  come  from  a  veteran 
of  the  Union  army,  a  broken  brother,  a  comrade 
who  has  passed  through  the  terrible  fire  of  the 
battles  which  are  the  price  of  mental  as  well  as 
of  physical  freedom.  Through  the  long  years 
that  have  elapsed  since  the  terrible  day  at  Stone 
River,  when  the  fragment  of  a  shell  did  its  fell 
work  upon  the  mystic  brain  tissues  that  are  the 
trysting  places  of  thought,  this  comrade  and 
brother  has  been  pathetically  waiting  for  the 
release  that  death  brings  from  pain  and  solitude. 
Through  the  rifts  in  the  cloud  that  overhangs 
1  his  mind  he  has  been  sending  me  messages,  often 
written  on  stray  scraps  of  paper.  Sometimes  the 
thought  is  incoherent,  oftentimes  the  writing  is 
illegible.  The  communications  come  now  from 
asylum,  now  from  hospital,  and  again  from  a 
soldiers'  home  as  far  removed  as  possible  from 
the  inhospitalities  of  our  northern  climate. 

While  in  the  midst  of  the  first  preparation  of 


JESS  33 

my  sketch  of  Jess,  I  received  from  this  pathetic 
source  a  weird  contribution  to  my  discourse.  A 
note  bearing  date  of  June  5th,  1894,  came  from 
a  distant  southern  city  addressed  to  the  "  Editor 
of  Unity"  It  said  :  "  Fearing  you  might  not  get 
my  horse's  photograph,  I  got  out  of  bed,  forced 
food  down  a  parched  throat,  and  came  over  a 
mile  through  the  hot  sun  to  secure  the  mailing 
of  this.  Unity  has  been  my  food  while  I  have 
been  dying,  crayfish  fashion,  and  I  want  you  to 
get  the  picture."  The  next  day  an  express  pack- 
age arrived,  containing  the  tin-type  of  a  spirited 
horse,  bridled  and  saddled  with  a  military  outfit. 
The  picture  was  accompanied  with  various  un- 
successful attempts  at  composition ;  but  among 
the  papers  were  two  tolerably  clear  letters  ad- 
dressed to  Jess,  purporting  to  be  written  to  her 
by  the  spirit  of  "  Frank  Wood,"  the  transfigured 
horse  of  this  long-suffering  soldier  of  the  Union 
army.  The  only  knowledge  my  correspondent 
could  have  had  of  the  silent  companion  of  my 
midsummer  wayfaring  was  through  such  hints 
as  only  a  careful  reader  could  glean  from  the 
columns  of  Unity.  Perhaps  in  these  weeks  there 
may  have  been  a  touch  of  weariness  discoverable 
in  the  editorial  columns.  Perhaps  the  approach- 


34  JESS 

ing  midsummer  rest  provoked  the  quaint  fancies 
embodied  in  these  letters.  Evidently  at  the  time 
of  writing  he  did  not  know  that  Jess,  too,  had 
passed  over  to  the  great  majority,  and  had  joined 
his  "Frank  Wood"  in  whatever  heaven  there  may 
be  in  store  for  faithful  horses.  The  first  letter 
to  Jess  bore  the  date  of  May  5,  1894,  showing 
that  for  more  than  a  month  his  mind  had  been 
brooding  upon  the  memories  of  his  horse  and 
his  fancies  concerning  mine.  The  first  letter  ran 
thus : — 

"  DEAR  JESS  :  —  I  hear  your  master  is  sick.  Now  I  want 
you  to  be  kinder  to  him  than  I  was  to  mine.  I  send  you  my 
tin-type  taken  in  Nashville  in  1 863.  Your  master  has  been  kind 
to  my  master.  My  master  was  kind  to  me.  Often  he  took  his 
gum  cover  off  for  me  in  the  storm.  Instead  of  throwing  my 
ears  of  corn  on  the  ground  he  would  cut  them  in  little  pieces 
for  me  and  feed  me  out  of  his  hand.  One  day,  just  as  the 
sun  was  lingering  on  Lookout  Mountain,  master  rode  out  be- 
yond Waldon's  Ridge  to  a  lone  grave  marked  by  a  wooden 
head-board.  He  knelt  by  it  and  cried  as  though  a  great  storm 
pressed  on  him.  I  laid  my  nose  on  his  shoulder  and  whinnied. 
I  had  often  seen  him  go  to  the  sick  friend  there  buried.  He 
was  a  gentle  spirit  crushed  to  the  earth,  not  killed  by  a  foe. 
Poor  master  seemed  to  wish  he  was  there,  but  he  was  to  live 
to  see  a  beautiful  home  made  desolate.  Dear  Jess,  we  bear  our 
burdens  on  the  outside,  they  on  the  inside.  Thank  God  for 
being  a  brute.  Be  kind,  be  gentle,  be  obedient.  As  a  run- 


JESS  35 

ning  soldier  of  the  regular  army  said  to  my  master,  '  Our 
glory  here  when  alive,  yours  there  when  dead.  So  I  run.' 
So  our  suffering  is  here,  theirs  there.  Be  as  you  wish  I  had 
been. 

"FRANK    WOOD. 

"  P.  S.  Do  you  know  I  think  that  we  whom  men  call 
'  brutes '  have  the  best  time.  We  are  of  money  value  ;  are 
taken  care  of.  We  bear  our  burdens  on  our  backs,  they  in 
their  hearts.  We  have  no  fear  of  the  future.  Our  all  is  now. 
Their  now  is  nothing.  Their  all  is  in  the  future.  Our  bodies 
may  suffer  for  want  of  oats  and  hay,  as  so  many  of  our  kind 
did  at  Stone  River ;  their  souls  starve  for  something  far  away 
that  they  value  more  than  now." 

The  second  letter  bore  the  date  of  July  4th, 
1898,  and  was  evidently  composed  in  anticipa- 
tion of  the  patriotic  celebration.  It  ran  thus  : 

"  JESS  :  —  Although  I  have  long  been  home  in  heaven  I  send 
you  a  message  on  this  Liberty  Day.  Your  master  is  working 
for  a  greater  liberty  than  you  celebrate.  Thirty  years  ago 
master  and  I  were  in  Nashville,  Tennessee.  Master  talked 
to  a  captain  who  was  at  Vicksburg  thirty-one  years  ago.  He 
said  he  was  so  weary  and  hungry  he  did  not  care  to  dodge  the 
shell  the  blue-coats  fired  at  the  gray.  Another  captain  told  of 
his  Vicksburg  experience.  He  had  been  up  two  nights,  and 
when  he  asked  for  relief  he  was  given  one  hour  in  which  to 
sleep.  When  these  human  bipeds  suffer  so  much  for  liberty, 
we  quadrupeds  ought  to  help  them.  Your  master  is  fighting  in 


36  JESS 

a  struggle  greater  than  ours,  as  much  greater  as  the  hawk  is 
greater  than  the  cage,  the  mind  greater  than  the  body.  So 
again  I  say  be  kind,  gentle,  obedient.  I  am  sorry  I  was  not 
thus  always.  Once  I  thought  I  was  smart  and  that  I  would 
not  be  a  slave  ;  I  would  run  away  and  take  '  Bet '  with  me. 
But  she  said,  '  Stay.  Our  master  is  kind. '  I  had  learned  to 
untie  any  knot  he  could  make.  One  day  just  at  dark  master 
got  on  me  and  rode  out  alone.  He  was  stopped  by  a  little 
negro  boy.  He  dismounted  and  crawled  to  the  top  of  the 
hill.  He  came  back,  mounted  me,  turned  and  ran  me  as  fast 
as  I  could  run  to  a  hill  ;  then  seeing  some  men  he  ran  me  to 
them  and  jumped  off.  One  of  the  men  caught  me.  He  ran 
to  a  tent.  Then  all  the  men  came  around,  and  mounting  horses 
began  to  run  them  in  all  directions.  All  night  long  this  was 
going  on.  No  sleep,  no  rest  to  them.  I  lay  down.  Almost 
as  soon  as  light  came  all  began  to  move.  The  men  went  first. 
We  then  went  in  another  direction  with  the  mules  and  wagons. 
Then  they  arranged  the  wagons  so  the  mules  were  behind  them. 
Master  tied  me  with  an  easy  knot  to  a  wagon.  He  lay  down 
on  a  fallen  tree.  I  thought  I  would  be  smart  and  untie  myself. 
I  was  then  starting  to  run,  when  his  colored  boy  caught  me.  He 
tied  me  to  a  small  tree  and  took  a  long  time.  By  and  by  some 
horses  came  to  meet  me.  They  did  not  stop,  but  ran,  and  the 
men  began  to  scamper.  All  was  confusion.  I  saw  master 
jump  up  and  go  to  where  I  wished  I  was  tied.  When  he  saw 
where  I  was  he  turned  and  went  back.  Then  without  hat  or 
coat  he  ran  for  me.  He  could  not  untie  me,  but  pulled  up  the 
bush  and  jumped  on  me.  He  must  have  risked  much,  as  all  the 
men  cheered  when  he  rode  up  safe.  It  was  to  save  me  that  he 
must  have  tied  me.  I  was  better  after  that.  And  so  I  say  be 


JESS  37 

gentle,  be  kind.      Your  master's  health  depends  on  you.      He 
is  at  a  grander  work  than  my  master  was.      Yours, 

"FRANK    WOOD." 

Behold,  what  sacred  weavings  cross  the  threads 
of  life.  How  near  us  lies  the  realm  of  mystery. 
Not  only  in  the  night  but  in  the  daytime  the 
mysterious  ships  approach  each  other,  salute, 
and  pass.  Try  what  figure  we  will,  be  it  woven 
fabric  or  open  sea,  they  are  all  inadequate. 
Whether  we  try  to  fathom  the  blind  movement 
in  the  heart  of  a  fractious  horse  or  the  awful 
agony  of  a  man  suffering  from  the  shipwreck 
of  faith  and  shattered  hearthstones,  our  plumb- 
line  is  too  short.  Everything  from  the  trusting 
love  of  a  horse  up  to  the  divine  expiation  on 
Calvary,  everything  from  the  long  homesickness 
of  the  dog  that  walked  from  Kansas  to  Illinois 
to  join  his  master  up  to  the  world-renouncing 
love  of  Prince  Siddartha,  the  Light  of  Asia,  be- 
speaks the  unity  of  law  and  love,  suggests  har- 
mony in  complexity,  simplicity  in  diversity.  It 
is  the  harmony  of  progress,  the  simplicity  of 
ethics  and  the  sublimity  of  reverence. 

*'  Restless,  restless,  speed  we  on,  — 
Whither  in  the  vast  unknown  ? 


38  JESS 


Not  to  you  and  not  to  me 

Are  the  sealed  orders  shown: 
But  the  Hand  that  built  the  road, 

And  the  Light  that  leads  the  feet, 
And  this  inward  restlessness, 

Are  such  invitation  sweet, 
That  where  I  no  longer  see, 

Highway  still  must  lead  to  Thee! 


REALIZING    LIFE 


SUNDAY  ON  THE  HILL-TOP 

Only  ten  miles  from  the  city,  — 

And  how  I  am  lifted  away 
To  the  peace  that  passeth  knowing, 

And  the  light  that  is  not  of  day  ! 

All  alone  on  the  hill-top  ! 

Nothing  but  God  and  me, 
And  the  springtime's  resurrection, 

Far  shinings  of  the  sea, 

The  river's  laugh  in  the  valley, 
Hills  dreaming  of  their  past ; 

And  all  things  silently  opening, 
Opening  into  the  Vast  ! 

Eternities  past  and  future 

Seem  clinging  to  all  I  see, 
And  things  immortal  cluster 

Around  my  bended  knee. 

That  pebble  —  is  older  than  Adam  ! 

Secrets  it  hath  to  tell ; 
These  rocks  —  they  cry  out  history, 

Could  but  I  listen  well. 

That  pool  knows  the  ocean-feeling, 
Of  storm  and  moon-led  tide  ; 

The  sun  finds  its  East  and  West  therein, 
And  the  stars  find  room  to  glide. 
40 


That  lichen's  crinkled  circle 

Still  creeps  with  the  Life  Divine, 
Where  the  Holy  Spirit  loitered 

On  its  way  to  this  face  of  mine,  — 

On  its  way  to  the  shining  faces 

Where  angel-lives  are  led  ; 
And  I  am  the  lichen's  circle 

That  creeps  with  tiny  tread. 

I  can  hear  these  violets  chorus 

To  the  sky's  benediction  above  : 
And  we  all  are  together  lying 

On  the  bosom  of  Infinite  Love. 

I  —  I  am  a  part  of  the  poem, 

Of  its  every  sight  and  sound, 
For  my  heart  beats  inward  rhymings 

To  the  Sabbath  that  lies  around. 

Oh,  the  peace  at  the  heart  of  Nature  ! 

Oh,  the  light  that  is  not  of  day  ! 
Why  seek  it  afar  forever, 

When  it  cannot  be  lifted  away  ? 

W.  C.  GANNETT. 

—  By  permission  of  Little,  Brown  and  Company,  Boston. 
4' 


REALIZING    LIFE 

What  went  ye  out  into  the  wilderness  to  see  ? 

MATTHEW,  xi.  7. 

THIS  age  of  steam  has  its  dangers  to  the  intel- 
lect as  well  as  its  strain  upon  the  body.  Too 
great  a  speed  sometimes  paralyzes  the  spirit  be- 
fore the  muscles  give  out.  Hurry  benumbs  the 
heart  more  often  than  it  exhausts  the  physical 
vitality.  Popular  opinion  seems  to  expect  that 
the  travelled  young  man  or  woman  will  be  blase 
to  all  the  ordinary  enjoyments  of  life.  The  aver- 
age day  and  the  average  road,  it  is  assumed,  will 
be  uninteresting  to  such.  Many  boast  of  cul- 
ture to  whom  the  world  seems  scarcely  more 
than  a  "  sucked  orange,"  to  use  Emerson's 
phrase. 

If  vacation  is  to  bring  its  highest  good,  it  must 
correct  this  tendency.  It  must  do  something 
toward  saving  us  from  this  danger.  It  is  but 
a  half  vacation  that  simply  rests  tired  muscle  or 
nerve ;  the  other  half  must  recruit  mind,  rein- 
vigorate  the  spirit.  It  were  better  not  to  stop 
the  strain  of  life  than  to  find  ourselves  at  the 


REALIZING   LIFE  43 

end  of  the  resting-time  less  ready  for  work,  less 
eager  for  tasks,  than  when  we  stopped.  An 
increased  capacity  for  digestion  is  not  much  to 
boast  of,  unless  there  is  with  it  a  renewed  relish 
for  life,  a  more  splendid  appetite  for  duty.  Those 
to  whom  vacation  has  failed  to  bring  a  fresh  and 
overpowering  sense  of  the  opulence  of  nature, 
the  wealth  of  life,  and  of  their  own  responsi- 
bilities, have  missed  the  reconstruction  they  went 
in  search  of.  They  have  been  dissipating  in- 
stead of  re-creating,  idling  instead  of  resting. 
Perhaps  the  highest  delight  that  a  vacation  brings 
to  busy  and  overworked  people  is  the  oppor- 
tunity of  feasting  the  eyes  once  more  on  the 
beauty  of  common  things ;  of  tuning  the  ear  to 
detect  the  music  there  is  in  the  life  of  ordinary 
men  and  women ;  of  reading  the  poetry  that  is 
ever  written  between  the  lines  of  the  dullest  prose 
of  common  life.  I  fear  there  is  a  tendency  in 
our  mid-summer  life  to  cultivate  the  "  Rock-me- 
to-sleep-in-a-hammock "  disposition  among  the 
few,  and  a  grim,  sullen,  almost  desperate  sort 
of  a  "  no-rest-for-the-wicked "  spirit  among  the 
many,  who  plod  through  the  joyless  round  of 
duties  that  have  become  drudgeries  from  which 
no  blessings  are  expected. 


44  JESS 

What  is  the  vacation  word  which  we  have  to 
bring  to  the  latter  ?  Can  we  only  tantalize  them 
with  glowing  accounts  of  distant  scenery  and 
hints  of  luxuries,  privileges,  and  pleasures  that 
are  beyond  their  reach  ?  I  rejoice  in  the  noon- 
ing hour  of  the  year  which  is  given  to  many. 
But  I  remember  also  those  who  may  not  take 
the  hand  from  the  tiller,  who  through  the  heat 
of  summer  as  well  as  the  chill  of  winter  keep 
the  ship  of  life  steadily  on  its  course.  I  am 
glad  nature  takes  no  rest.  The  sun  has  had  no 
holiday  and  the  earth  has  not  ceased  to  pursue 
its  unhasting  and  unresting  round.  To  those 
who  have  kept  time  with  the  sun  and  have  tried 
to  keep  step  with  nature's  ceaseless  toil,  I  would 
like  to  bring  out  of  my  holiday  a  thought  or 
two  that  may  sanctify  and  ennoble  their  days 
of  labor  and  go  toward  making  the  working  days 
that  await  us  all  more  blithe  and  beautiful  than 
any  found  on  hill-top  or  by  water-side. 

May  I  seek  these  lessons  in  my  own  experi- 
ence ?  Through  the  generous  kindness  of  my 
fellow-workers,  already  acknowledged,  I  was  able 
to  ride  away  from  the  city  of  Chicago  on  the 
tenth  of  July  on  the  back  of  my  own  horse  Jess, 
with  only  such  equipments  as  previous  experi- 


REALIZING   LIFE  45 

ence  had  taught  me  were  compatible  with  light 
marching,  snugly  stowed  away  in  the  saddle-bags. 
I  began  my  journey  in  the  beautiful  parks  of 
our  city.  I  rode  through  Washington,  Douglas, 
and  Humboldt  Parks  and  the  connecting  bou- 
levards, with  their  shaven  lawns,  their  highly 
elaborated  flower-beds,  and  the'ir  gayly  dressed 
children.  It  almost  seemed  reckless  to  turn 
one's  back  upon  such  tempting  luxuriance  as 
these  gardens  of  the  people  offered.  One  was 
tempted  to  exclaim,  "  Who  need  look  for  better  ? 
This  is  good  enough  for  me  ! "  Once  out  of 
reach  of  this  nature  raised  to  its  highest  exponent 
by  skilled  human  nature,  there  was  nothing  to 
expect  but  the  prosaic  dust  of  common  country 
roads,  the  meagre  privileges  of  poorly  kept  coun- 
try inns,  the  hurried  life  of  preoccupied  people. 
But  to  these  we  turned. 

Jess  was  a  thoroughbred  American.  For  the 
first  two  days  she  was  tormented  with  the  spirit 
of  the  age,  the  hurry  to  get  there,  though  she, 
like  many  of  the  pushers  and  the  rushers,  had 
no  idea  where  that  "  there  "  was,  or  what  it  would 
contain  for  her  when  it  should  be  found ;  but 
with  her,  as  with  her  human  fellow-beings,  the 
road  was  evidently  a  thing  to  be  done  with,  and 


46  JESS 

the  end  of  the  road  the  thing  to  be  desired.  But 
well  along  in  the  third  day  she  began  to  think 
there  was  no  end  to  that  road  for  her,  and  that 
if  anything  was  to  be  gotten  out  of  it,  she  must 
take  her  pleasure  and  her  pay  as  she  went  along. 
Then  the  wayside  shade  and  the  long  grass  in 
the  fence  corner"  began  to  tempt  her  and  to  give 
her  much  pleasure. 

The  chief  difference  between  Jess  and  her 
human  kin  in  this  respect,  I  fancy,  lay  in  the 
fact  that  she  learned  her  lesson  in  much  less  time 
than  we  do.  How  many  of  us  go  steaming  on, 
champing  our  bits,  pressing,  fretting  to  get  there, 
through  forty,  fifty,  sixty  years  of  life's  road, 
tufted  with  clover,  carpeted  with  sweet  grass, 
shaded  ever  and  anon  with  noble  trees,  marked 
with  frequent  surprises  and  tempting  resting- 
spots,  all  of  which  we  do  not  see  and  will  not 
enjoy  because  of  the  prolonged  fever  for  the  end. 
When  Jess  had  learned  this  lesson,  the  march 
itself  became  delightful,  and  we  went  on  and  on 
and  on,  day  after  day,  counting  valley  after  val- 
ley, climbing  hill  after  hill,  with  no  more  haste, 
but  a  growing  sense  that  here  was  as  good  as 
there,  and  that  there  were  delights  everywhere. 
We  grew  companionable,  we  trusted  each  other, 


REALIZING    LIFE  47 

we  rested  each  other.  One  walked  and  then 
both  walked,  until  we  had  gone  over  some  five 
hundred  miles  of  the  world  together. 

Mount  Horeb,  Mount  Ida,  Mount  Hope, 
Blue  Mounds,  Pine  Bluff,  Highlands,  Castle 
Rock,  Wauwatosa,  Prairie  du  Chien,  and  Port 
Andrew  are  places  all  unfamiliar  to  the  tourist. 
They  are  not  down  in  the  list  of  summer  re- 
sorts, but  taken  in  the  leisure  of  the  country 
road  they  all  have  charms,  histories,  traditions, 
and  romances  to  delight  the  eye  and  feed  the 
mind.  There  were  the  alternations  of  hill  and 
dale,  rugged  rocks  rimming  around  glorious 
clover  fields,  knee-deep  in  which  stood  happy 
cattle  high  in  pedigree,  five  hundred  miles  of 
flower-bordered  road  lined  with  blackberries, 
raspberries,  and  plums  to  tempt  delay.  But 
more  than  this,  we  travelled  over  five  hundred 
miles  of  unwritten  heroism  and  unrecorded 
bravery.  Every  crumbling  log  house  had  a  story 
of  frontier  hardship,  perchance  of  pilgrim  loyalty 
and  pioneer  prophecy  to  tell  the  leisurely  horse- 
man. Climb  over  into  the  neglected  burying- 
grounds  along  the  way,  and  amid  the  unkempt 
grasses  you  may  read  names  that  reach  back  to 
Scandinavian  fiords,  Irish  cabins,  Scotch  heather 


48  JESS 

hills  or  German  vineyards,  names  that  are  wine 
to  the  imagination,  stirring  it  into  fancies  and 
into  tears. 

Five  hundred  miles  on  horseback  in  Wisconsin 
reveals  great  stretches  of  human  nature  still 
alive  and  throbbing  with  creative  forces,  as  well 
as  sacred  memory  fields.  Jess,  like  her  rider, 
soon  learned  to  have  an  interest  in  the  life  along 
the  road.  She  loved  to  stop  to  inquire  the  way, 
and  was  loath  to  pass  a  team  without  exchang- 
ing a  word.  She  was  interested  with  me  in  the 
simple  procession,  of  human  nature  that  passed 
in  review  as  we  travelled,  —  harvest  hands,  hay- 
makers, berry-pickers,  women  in  the  garden, 
boys  hunting  cows,  or  Shakespeare's  whining 
schoolboy, 

"creeping  like  snail 
Unwillingly  to  school." 

One  day  we  joined  a  funeral  procession,  the 
next  we  waited  to  see  a  circus  pass.  A  camp- 
meeting,  the  Salvation  Army,  Professor  Buckley 
with  his  educated  horses  and  trained  dogs,  all 
fell  in  our  way  and  enriched  our  lives.  One  hot 
afternoon  we  were  just  in  time  to  take  in  the 
closing  exercises  of  a  sleepy  little  district  school 
of  twelve  children,  nine  of  them  barefooted,  and 


REALIZING    LIFE  49 

the  little  "  school  ma'am  "  gave  them  each  a  card, 
such  as  I  used  to  receive.  She  tried  to  make  a 
little  farewell  speech,  but  embarrassment  and 
tears  choked  her,  and  we  helped  her  out.  We 
found  human  nature  so  in  love  with  flowers 
that  it  embowered  the  roughest  cabin  in  morn- 
ing-glories. We  also  found  human  nature,  alas  ! 
so  unsavory,  barren,  dirty,  that  it  turned  us  away 
from  the  big  house  without  courage  to  ask  for 
the  dinner  we  needed.  We  found  human  nature 
grim  and  selfish,  tender  and  generous.  We  en- 
countered the  blight  of  plenty,  the  complacency 
of  independent  ease,  and  just  over  the  way  we 
found  the  generosity  of  pinched  lives,  the  benefi- 
cent pity  of  the  poor  for  the  poor. 

One  night  the  road  grew  long  and  we  fain 
would  shorten  the  projected  route  by  asking 
shelter  along  the  way.  The  farms  were  ample 
and  the  farm-houses  modern  and  roomy,  but 
their  owners  one  after  another  refused  to  take  us 
in.  They  were  not  "  fixed  to  keep  travellers," 
they  said.  The  fifth  time  the  plea  for  the  tired 
horse  fell  on  unresponsive  ears  and  the  refusal 
was  shaking  our  faith  in  human  nature,  when  the 
young  farmer  said,  "  I'll  tell  you  where  you  can 
stop, — a  half  mile  ahead,  at  my  mother's."  And, 


50  JESS 

sure  enough,  we  found  there  the  promised  wel- 
come. While  enjoying  the  bread  and  milk  in 
the  cozy  home  of  the  Irish  widow,  I  asked, 
"  How  long  have  you  lived  here  ?  "  "  Forty 
years,  sir.  I  have  raised  nine  boys,  and  buried 
my  husband  twenty  years  ago."  The  boy  that 
directed  me  was  a  graduate  of  the  State  Univer- 
sity. They  taught  him  trigonometry  at  college, 
but  they  neglected  to  put  in  a  course  on  hospi- 
tality. Perhaps  it  is  expecting  too  much  of  a 
university  to  teach  such  high  virtues  to  men 
who  live  in  big  houses  and  have  married  women 
who  have  been  "  off  to  school "  and  can  play  on 
the  piano  and  read  French ;  but  the  open  door, 
spiritual  and  mental  as  well  as  material,  of  the 
widow's  home  suggests  communications  with 
heaven,  and  the  teaching  of  it  is  worthy  of  a 
professor's  chair  in  our  colleges. 

Another  night  found  us  entering  a  nook  of 
bewitching  loveliness  at  the  base  of  a  great  castel- 
lated rock  standing  like  a  Titanic  throne  in  the 
centre  of  circling  strata  and  splendid  hills,  with 
a  dashing,  chattering  brook  of  spring-water  at 
its  foot.  Both  horse  and  rider  espied  with  joy 
the  pretty  house  on  the  knoll  and  the  ample  barn 
fragrant  with  new-mown  hay.  The  motherly 


REALIZING    LIFE  51 

housewife  thought  we  might  stay.  The  horse 
more  than  the  rider  appeared  to  win  her.  But 
she  said  we  must  wait  "until  the  old  man  comes," 
and  the  old  man  said  no,  he  wasn't  "  fixed  to 
keep  strangers."  We  did  not  tell  him  that  the 
needed  "  fixtures "  were  missing  on  the  inside. 
Another  and  another  "  no "  followed,  and  the 
two  tired  travellers  climbed  the  hill  out  of  that 
valley  as  darkness  was  settling  down  upon  it, 
with  the  lines  of  the  missionary  hymn  forcing 
themselves  into  the  mind  of  one  of  the  travellers, 

"  Where  every  prospect  pleases, 
And  only  man  is  "  —  discouraging. 

That  night  I  slept  in  a  trundle-bed  in  a  Norwe- 
gian log  house,  and  found  next  morning  that 
three  or  four  of  the  white-headed  children  had 
slept  on  the  floor  that  I  might  have  a  bed.  At 
breakfast  the  good  woman  urged  me  to  take  more 
molasses.  She  didn't  want  to  take  any  pay,  be- 
cause she  wasn't  "  fixed  to  keep  strangers."  I 
could  not  tell  her  how  much  ampler  were  her 
accommodations  than  those  of  the  crusty  farmer 
with  the  big  barn  and  the  white  house,  how 
much  wealthier  she  was  than  he. 

But  what  is  the  chief  lesson  of  this  vacation 


52  JESS 

ride  ?  Simply  this  :  There  is  much  life  all  about 
us  that  we  fail  to  realize.  To  teach  us  to  appre- 
ciate and  utilize  the  resources  of  this  life  is  the 
mission  of  religion.  We  need  help  to  realize 
the  bigness  of  the  world.  We  perhaps  have 
dwelt  too  long  upon  the  inconceivable  stretches 
of  Astronomy.  We  have  tried  to  fix  in  our 
minds  the  distance  between  us  and  the  sun. 
This  should  not  exclude  from  our  minds  that 
higher  realization  of  the  wealth  there  is  in  the 
spaces  which  we  can  traverse.  From  Chicago  to 
Spring  Green  by  train  is  only  a  night's  sleep, 
but  from  Chicago  to  Spring  Green  on  horse- 
back is  a  week  full  of  miles,  each  mile  of  which 
sustains  its  quota  of  marvellous  life.  From 
Chicago  to  Spring  Green  by  country  road  the 
way  is  lined  with  hundreds  of  schoolhouses  and 
scores  of  churches,  with  probably  a  graveyard 
once  in  every  six  miles  or  less.  Every  quarter 
of  a  mile,  or  oftener,  there  is  a  home,  and  in 
these  homes  babes  are  born,  children  wail,  and 
mothers  weep.  Around  these  homes  cluster  the 
hopes  of  spring  and  the  disappointments  of 
autumn,  the  strain  of  summer  and  the  solitudes 
of  winter.  Between  Chicago  and  Spring  Green 
I  passed  through  some  thirty  villages  with  their 


REALIZING   LIFE  53 

clustered  groups  of  workmen  and  workwomen, 
and  the  road  I  traversed  is  only  one  of  the 
countless  two-hundred-mile  stretches  that  radiate 
from  Chicago.  Perhaps  realizing  the  extent  and 
content  of  one  such  route,  feeling  the  mystery 
of  it,  letting  its  pains  and  joys,  its  past  and  pres- 
ent, touch  one  with  awe,  may  bring  God  nearer, 
make  revelation  a  reality  and  inspiration  a  fact 
of  inward  experience  more  successfully  than 
would  a  course  in  a  divinity  school,  and  may 
prove  a  greater  help  to  piety  than  knowing  all 
about  the  Hebrew  kings  or  being  able  to  read 
the  New  Testament  in  the  original  Greek. 

But  marvellous  and  awe-inspiring  as  is  such  a 
stretch  of  space,  it  is  still  empty  and  barren  com- 
pared to  the  still  greater  stretches  that  reach 
through  any  human  life.  It  was  a  greater  dis- 
tance from  the  cradle  of  that  simple  school- 
teacher to  the  schoolroom  than  it  is  from  Chicago 
to  Spring  Green,  or  even  to  Boston,  with  the 
Hudson  River  and  Berkshire  Hills  thrown  in. 
There  are  greater  alternations  of  heights  and 
depths,  thirsting  sands  and  blooming  flowers,  in 
the  life  of  that  unsophisticated  little  "school- 
ma'am  "  not  yet  out  of  her  teens  than  nature 
has  to  give  anywhere  in  her  geological  or  geo- 


54  JESS 

graphical  formations.  The  difficult  thing  to  do 
is  to  realize,  not  only  the  extent  but  the  variety 
and  the  beauty  that  are  packed  away  within  the 
reach  of  anybody,  within  the  being  of  everybody. 
The  people  of  the  West  have  heard  a  great 
deal  about  the  monotony  of  western  scenery. 
They  have  learned  in  their  blindness  to  concede 
that  their  prairies  are  "stale,  flat,  and  unprofitable" 
save  for  the  purposes  of  pasturing  cattle  and 
raising  corn.  I  have  no  reflections  to  make  or 
comparisons  to  institute.  Let  not  the  hands  say 
to  the  feet,  "  I  have  no  need  of  you,"  nor  the 
feet  to  the  head,  "  I  have  no  need  of  you."  I 
simply  say  that  the  primal  mission  of  religion 
is  to  bring  a  realizing  sense  of  the  world  —  the 
world  of  matter  and  of  mind  revealed  around 
and  within  us  wherever  we  may  be,  and  that  in 
proportion  as  we  realize  it  we  touch  the  hem  of 
immensity,  we  are  embowered  in  variety,  we  find 
things  so  interlocked,  so  blended,  that  beauty 
breaks  upon  us  everywhere.  The  central  thing 
in  Emerson's  philosophy  of  life  is  found  in  his 
oft-repeated  protest  against  the  habit  of  mind 
which  is  always  seeking  glory  and  beauty  in  some 
distant  place,  always  reaching  for  remote  revela- 
tions of  nature  and  of  God.  "  Why  go  to  Italy," 


REALIZING   LIFE  55 

he  says,  "  to  see  a  sunset  that  you  can  see  from 
your  own  kitchen  door  ?  "  I  suspect  that  this 
is  the  central  thing  in  religion  also,  a  realizing 
sense  of  the  fulness  of  earth,  an  apprehension  of 
the  pregnant  life  that  makes  metropolitan  to 
some  order  of  living  beings  the  oak  leaf,  that 
populates  the  hillock  with  communities  which 
in  their  own  way  live  in  Parisian  splendor ;  that 
recognizes  in  the  matted  sward,  the  pebbled 
beach,  and  slaty  hill-top  a  carpet  more  exqui- 
sitely inwrought  than  the  rarest  of  Persian  rugs, 
a  tessellated  pavement  a  thousand  times  more 
varied  and  exquisite  than  any  found  in  Roman 
hall  or  Pompeian  villa. 

"  What  a  great  thought  of  God  was  that  when 
he  thought  a  tree,"  says  Ruskin.  And  a  noble 
elm  in  a  pasture,  that  beckons  to  its  shelter  with 
its  pendulous  branches,  is  as  direct  a  projection 
out  of  the  heart  and  mind  of  God  as  are  the 
elms  on  Boston  Common.  If  the  one  does  not 
summon  us  to  the  silent  litanies  of  nature's  wor- 
ship, we  shall  waste  much  of  our  vacation  money 
in  travelling  to  see  the  other.  If  the  voice  of  the 
Lord  is  not  heard  in  the  Wisconsin  pine  tree 
by  him  who  walks  beneath  it,  he  will  hear  but 
a  faint  echo  of  that  voice  in  the  cedars  of  Leb- 


56  JESS 

anon.  Every  place  is  lovely  to  him  who  has 
the  robust  piety  of  the  ancient  psalmist  and 
knows  that  "  the  earth  is  the  Lord's  and  the 
fulness  thereof,"  for  everywhere  his  order  shapes 
itself  into  beauty  and  utility. 

I  have  not  a  very  clear  conception  as  to  what 
kind  of  place  the  "  desert "  was  that  is  spoken 
of  so  often  in  the  Bible  as  the  resort  of  lawgiver, 
prophet,  and  reformer,  but  for  vacation  uses  I 
cannot  think  it  was  equal  to  the  lake  counties  of 
Wisconsin  and  northern  Illinois,  to  say  nothing 
of  New  England  or  the  Rocky  Mountain  region. 
And  still  in  those  barren  fastnesses  of  Sinai 
were  conceived  the  sublime  demands  of  the 
"Ten  Commandments."  There  did  Elijah  regird 
himself,  and,  after  a  forty  days'  retirement,  —  a 
good  summer's  vacation,  —  return  reanimated,  re- 
cruited, ready  for  work.  I  know  not  what  hap- 
pened to  John  the  Baptist  or  to  Jesus  when  they 
were  "  driven  into  the  wilderness,"  but  I  am 
sure  it  was  something  that  enabled  them  better 
to  realize  life,  to  feel  the  pressure  and  potency 
of  things,  something  that  lifted  them  into  a  sense 
of  sanctity,  a  consciousness  of  divine  nearness,  of 
sacred  realities.  When  one  feels  this,  he  has  the 


REALIZING    LIFE  57 

religion  that  John  and  Jesus  knew  of,  the  reli- 
gion that  cries,  "  Repent,  for  the  kingdom  of 
God  is  at  hand,"  the  religion  that  says,  "  Know 
ye  not  that  ye  are  the  temple  of  God  and  that 
the  spirit  of  God  dwelleth  in  you  ?  " 

When  shall  we  break  the  bonds  of  these 
material  superstitions  and  find  our  Jordan  in 
the  nearest  river  available,  our  Horeb  the  first 
table-land  we  can  climb  ?  When  that  time 
comes,  Bible-reading  will  ripen  into  Bible-mak- 
ing, and  instead  of  studying  the  "prophets"  as 
though  that  were  the  only  thing  we  could  do, 
we  shall  begin  to  prophesy  and  sing  out  of  our 
own  times  and  places,  — 

"Glorious  things  of  thee  are  spoken, 
Zion,  city  of  our  God." 

Prairie  du  Chien  is  one  of  the  most  interesting 
historical  landmarks  in  Wisconsin.  Situated  at 
the  junction  of  the  Wisconsin  and  Mississippi 
rivers,  it  became  one  of  the  earliest  French  out- 
posts, an  important  fur-trading  station.  As  early 
as  1673,  Louis  Joliet  left  Quebec  under  orders 
to  discover  the  South  Sea.  Taking  with  him 
Father  Marquette  from  Mackinac,  he  reached 
the  Mississippi  River  by  way  of  the  Wisconsin, 


58  JESS 

and  at  the  "  prairie  of  the  dogs,"  or,  more  prob- 
ably, the  prairie  of  the  wild  wolves,  they  raised 
the  cross  and  the  flag  of  France.  That  flag  has 
lost  its  right  of  possession,  but  the  cross  of  the 
Roman  church,  an  organization  which  began  be- 
fore France  was,  which  I  believe  and  hope  will 
last  in  some  developed  form  when  France  is  not, 
still  holds  its  place  there.  Prairie  du  Chien  is 
still  a  stronghold  of  French  Catholicism,  an  im- 
portant college  town  of  that  faith. 

When  visiting  this  place  on  my  ride,  I  caught 
sight  of  a  most  suggestive  and  beautiful  picture. 
Very  early  after  a  night's  rain,  before  the  sun  was 
up,  I  wandered  aimlessly  to  the  margin  of  the 
village,  and  came  upon  what,  for  America,  was 
a  very  old  church,  a  quaint  and  impressive  relic 
of  a  past  generation.  The  old  minster  was 
backed  by  a  populous  burying-ground,  guarded 
by  a  forbidding  high  fence  and  filled  with  quaint- 
looking  monuments,  and  grim,  rude  crosses. 
Through  the  high  picket  fence  I  saw,  slowly 
pacing  up  and  down  the  gravelled  walk,  the  tall, 
gaunt  form  of  a  venerable  priest,  robed  to  the 
feet  in  the  black  gown  of  his  order,  the  close 
black  cap  but  partially  confining  the  long  flow- 
ing locks  of  hair  white  as  snow.  This  aged 


REALIZING   LIFE  59 

father,  whose  frame  was  perhaps  two  or  three 
inches  over  six  feet  high  before  it  was  bent  by 
age,  showed  no  sign  of  that  corporeal  indulgence 
which  so  many  of  his  order  carry.  It  betokened 
well  the  spiritual  adviser,  the  shepherd  of  souls. 
He  walked  with  his  hands  behind  him,  his  head 
bent  as  if  in  sweet  communion  with  his  own, 
the  children  of  his  heart  whom  he  had  gathered 
one  by  one  into  this  home  of  the  dead  where 
soon  he  would  join  them  in  a  well-earned  rest. 
He  was  walking  among  his  dead.  He  was 
musing  upon  the  past.  He  was  the  priest  of 
antiquity,  the  representative  of  a  religion  of 
tradition.  Blessed  old  man,  he  had  a  right  to 
such  musings,  and  the  morning  sun  touched  with 
beauty  no  more  fitting  picture  than  when  it  fell 
upon  his  gray  hairs  amid  the  tombstones.  If 
we  would  realize  life  in  its  fulness,  we  must  have 
room  in  our  thought  and  a  place  in  our  hearts 
for  that  venerable  father.  We  must  know  and 
feel  what  he  knew  and  felt.  I  should  have  liked 
a  rosary  just  then,  and  could  have  easily  joined 
in  a  litany  to  St.  Augustine,  St.  Francis,  and  the 
rest  of  them.  Their  names  and  words  have 
rimmed  that  plain  with  a  more  sacred  halo  for 
three  hundred  years,  and  to  see  Prairie  du  Chien 


60  JESS 

without  seeing  and  feeling  this  is  not  to  see  it, 
although  you  may  drink  of  its  medicinal  waters 
and  look  down  upon  it  from  its  beautiful  hills. 

But  we  must  realize  more  than  this  if  we  would 
realize  life  as  it  is  to-day,  life  in  its  divine  signifi- 
cance and  quality.  Across  the  way  was  the  public 
school  building.  Early  as  it  was,  the  locomotives 
were  fuming  down  on  the  river's  brink,  fretting 
to  be  away  with  their  loads  of  human  freight,  one 
to  Dakota,  the  other  to  Chicago.  I  am  afraid 
that  these  did  not  have  so  large  a  place  in  the 
life  of  the  venerable  father  as  they  merited.  He 
perhaps  did  not  realize  the  public  school  and 
the  locomotive,  the  Dakota  farmer  and  the  Chi- 
cago travelling  man,  as  much  as  they  deserved ; 
hence  his  religion  was  imperfect.  He,  like  the 
graduate  of  the  university,  for  all  his  acquire- 
ments, would  probably  say  to  many  a  spiritual 
visitor  and  traveller,  "  We  are  not  fixed  here  to 
entertain  strangers."  The  Catholic  church,  like 
the  University  of  Wisconsin,  doubtless  needs  a 
professor  of  hospitality  to  teach  the  gospel  of 
the  open  door,  the  piety  of  receptivity.  The 
venerable  "  Father "  communing  with  his  dead 
did  not  fully  realize  life. 

The  Kickapoo  valley  is  one  of  the  noblest  and 


REALIZING    LIFE  61 

most  lonely  of  the  hard-wood  forest  regions  of 
Wisconsin.  Riding  through  this  on  my  return 
from  the  old  French  town  of  Prairie  du  Chien, 
I  saw  an  unkempt,  barefooted  native,  with  his 
fishing  equipment,  looking  intently  into  what 
seemed  an  uninteresting  mud-hole  in  the  road 
ahead.  He  long  continued  his  silent  watch,  and 
finally  seated  himself  in  a  comfortable  position 
that  he  might  persevere  at  his  vague  vigilance. 
"  Well,  stranger,  what  do  you  expect  to  find  in 
that  mud-hole  ? "  "  \Vaa-ll,  sir,  I  think  I  see 
some  bees  a  waterin'  theirselves  here,  and  I 
thought  I'd  watch  and  see  which  way  they  went 
and  I  mout  track  'em  and  find  a  bee-tree. 
They've  got  a  right  smart  of  honey  laid  up 
now.  There's  plenty  of  'em  among  these  bass- 
wood  trees."  Not  much  of  a  prophet  was  this 
fisherman,  bee-man,  and  trapper,  but  he  realized 
at  least  one  thing  which  the  brooding  monk  is 
ever  in  danger  of  forgetting,  namely,  that  there 
are  honey-bearing  trees  yet  in  the  woods,  and 
that  if  we  would  find  them  we  must  watch  and 
see  which  way  the  bees  fly.  Though  they  lead 
us  through  untracked  forests,  and  though  in  the 
pursuit  we  may  often  be  scratched  and  baffled, 
there  is  the  honey  farther  on.  We  must  look 


62  JESS 

forward  as  well  as  backward,  must  believe  in  the 
future  as  in  the  past,  must  venerate  the  babe 
as  well  as  the  grandfather. 

The  fine  task  is  to  clothe  the  bee-hunter  with 
the  reverence,  the  courtesy,  the  humility  of  the 
Catholic  father. 

A  few  miles  of  noble  forest  solitudes  from  my 
bee-hunter  I  stopped  at  a  log  house  for  a  drink 
of  water,  and  the  cordial  Irish  grandmother  in- 
sisted on  going  deep  into  the  dark  woods  to  the 
spring  for  a  fresh  pailful.  When  on  her  return 
I  confessed  that  I  was  from  Chicago,  her  hospi- 
talities, if  possible,  were  doubled,  because  "  It 
seems  like  as  if  I  had  found  a  neighbor.  I  used 
to  live  in  Chicago  myself,  but  left  it  in  1848  and 
have  lived  in  the  woods  ever  since.  I  knew 
Long  John  Wentworth  mighty  well,  and  I  felt 
real  bad  when  I  heard  of  his  death."  She  wanted 
much  to  hear  how  things  looked  in  Chicago  now, 
particularly  around  where  the  old  garrison  house 
stood,  "just  outside  the  fort,  you  know."  Her 
boy,  born  in  the  woods,  had  been  in  Chicago 
several  times.  He  had  told  her  that  she  could 
not  find  her  way  there  now  at  all,  but  she  was 
positive  that  if  they  would  just  put  her  on 
"  Clark  street  bridge  onct "  she  could  find  her 


REALIZING   LIFE  63 

way  "  to  the  place  where  the  old  house  stood 
by  the  river  on  the  west  side."  Dear  old  soul, 
it  is  not  likely  that  she  will  ever  have  a  chance 
to  try  to  find  the  old  place,  but  the  Chicago  in 
her  heart  is  a  more  magnificent  reality  than  the 
huge  piles  of  brick  and  stone  that  have  come 
to  confound  her  landmarks  since  she  left  the 
western  village  in  1848.  There  may  be  more 
of  life,  marvel,  holiness,  God,  in  her  hospitable 
spirit  than  in  many  of  the  cold  piles  of  exclusive 
selfishness  that  adorn  the  Chicago  avenues.  She 
was  richer  in  her  "  eighty "  of  good  land  than 
many  of  Chicago's  millionnaires. 

"  What  went  ye  out  into  the  wilderness  to 
see  ? "  The  disciples  had  just  returned  from 
an  excursion,  a  long  trip  to  the  banks  of  the 
Jordan,  where  they  had  talked  with  the  weird 
John,  and  had  been  reminded  by  Jesus  that 
they  went  to  see  not  a  mere  "  reed  shaken  in 
the  wind,"  not  a  man  "  clothed  in  soft  raiment " 
such  as  is  worn  in  kings'  houses,  no,  not  even 
a  "  prophet,"  but  a  messenger  from  the  Most 
High,  one  who  had  come  to  prepare  the  wav 
for  larger  and  better  things.  So  if  we  in  our 
vacation  wanderings  see  only  shaking  reeds,  com- 
forts, luxuries,  those  things  which  encourage  self- 


64  JESS 

indulgence,  increase  discontent,  and  blind  our 
eyes  to  the  realities  around  us,  it  is  better  that 
we  do  not  go.  But  if  we  can  realize  that  not 
only  the  brave  John  by  the  Jordan,  but  every 
waving  field  of  corn,  the  sweet-scented  hay  of 
the  meadow,  every  leaf  on  the  bough  and  every 
bird  among  the  leaves,  is  a  messenger  direct  from 
God,  confronting  us  with  his  message,  preparing 
his  way,  telling  us  that  we  do  dwell  in  the  house 
of  the  Lord,  we  are  communicants  at  his  table. 
And  still  more,  wherever  is  seen  the  human  heart 
revealed,  whether  it  be  in  the  careless  child  in  the 
shade,  the  anxious  mother  in  the  strain  of  her 
household  cares,  or  the  finite  providence  of  the 
farm-house  at  his  chores,  whether  in  gathering 
sheaves  into  the  barn  or  laying  the  dead  away 
in  the  grave,  we  have  seen  that  which  is  more 
than  reeds,  however  beautiful ;  than  raiment,  how- 
ever soft ;  we  have  beheld  messengers  of  the  Most 
High  preparing  us  to  see  his  face,  ripening  us  to 
realize  the  truth  that  no  more  impartial  are  the 
sun's  rays  than  are  the  rays  of  his  love,  no  more 
inclusive  is  the  starry  firmament  above  us  than 
is  that  inner  firmament  of  thought  and  duty. 
Varied  are  the  trees  in  the  forests,  but  more 
varied  are  the  men  and  women  of  humanity ; 


REALIZING   LIFE  65 

yet  all  the  forest  is  nature's,  and  all  men  are 
God's. 

"  What  went  ye  out  into  the  wilderness  to 
see?  "  Messengers  of  an  untrammelled  religion, 
teachers  of  undogmatic  piety,  a  scripture  not 
bounded  by  word,  form,  or  sect,  heralds  of  the 
church  of  progress,  the  church  with  a  door  as 
open  as  nature,  with  a  dome  as  vast  as  the  sky, 
with  a  hand  as  helpful  as  a  mother's,  a  church 
founded  on  God's  texts  inscribed  in  leaf,  in  bird, 
in  field,  in  rock,  in  man. 

"  What  went  ye  out  into  the  wilderness  to 
see  ?  "  That  which  rebukes  laziness,  which  con- 
demns selfishness,  humiliates  pride,  denies  all  our 
pretensions  to  exclusive  monopoly  either  of  truth, 
duty,  or  love ;  that  which  enables  us  to  realize 
life,  its  extent,  its  variety,  its  beauty.  Seeing 
this  we  should  come  back  to  our  tasks  prepared 
to  work  more  diligently,  speak  more  plainly,  hope 
more  earnestly,  and  trust  more  devoutly. 


A  DINNER    OF    HERBS 


Unwrap  thy  life  of  many  wants  and  fine  : 

He  who  with  Christ  will  dine 

Shall  see  no  table  curiously  spread, 

But  fish  and  barley  bread. 

Where  readest  thou  that  Jesus  bade  us  pray, 

Give  us  our  sumptuous  fare  from  day  to  day  ? 

Why  wilt  thou  take  a  castle  on  thy  back, 

When  God  gave  but  a  pack  ? 

With  gown  of  honest  wear,  why  wilt  thou  tease 

For  braid  and  fripperies  ? 

Learn  thou  with  flowers  to  dress,  with  birds  to  feed, 

And  pinch  thy  large  want  to  thy  little  need. 

FREDERICK  LANGBRIDGE. 


A    DINNER    OF    HERBS 

Better  a  dinner  of  herbs  where  love  is, 
Than  a  stalled  ox  and  hatred  therewith. 

PROVERBS  xv.  17. 

DURING  my  vacation  ride  in  the  summer  of 
1890,  my  good  horse  Jess  and  I  had  one  day  to 
cross  over  from  one  into  another  of  the  transverse 
valleys  that  open  into  the  wider  basin  of  the 
Wisconsin  River.  We  left  behind  us  the  beauti- 
ful valley  of  the  Lemonweir  and  crossed  a  high, 
rocky  and  wooded  range  of  bluffs  into  the  valley 
of  the  Baraboo.  The  day  was  very  hot,  the  road 
was  a  rough  one  and  would  have  been  very  lonely 
had  not  Jess  and  myself  been  on  the  best  of 
terms  with  the  countless  companions  in  nature's 
household  who  greeted  us  everywhere  in  furs  and 
feathers.  The  ascent  was  a  long  up-hill  pull  for 
two  or  three  miles,  a  task  which  Jess  and  I  ac- 
complished side  by  side,  using  six  feet  instead  of 
four,  and  then  came  a  long  ride  over  the  wooded 
summit,  through  heavy  hard-wood  forests  which 

69 


70  JESS 

had  been  robbed  of  their  noblest  monarchs, 
though  there  were  still  trees  enough  left  to  carry 
me  back  to  the  early  days  of  my  childhood  in 
the  territorial  forest  of  Wisconsin,  when  the  ring 
of  the  woodman's  axe  was  a  most  familiar  sound, 
and  the  arrival  of  the  new  settler  was  marked  by 
a  new  log  house  in  the  clearing  encircled  by  the 
inevitable  worm-fence. 

Noon  overtook  us  on  the  high  divide  when  we 
had  already  travelled  more  than  twenty  miles,  our 
limit  of  a  proper  half-day's  journey.  Jess  had 
refreshed  herself  at  a  wayside  trough  halfway  up 
the  hill,  but  we  were  both  hungry,  and  I  was 
very  thirsty.  At  last  the  long  solitary  road  came 
upon  an  opening  among  the  trees  which  contained 
a  log  house  with  its  back  to  the  road  and  a  very 
little  garden  patch,  with  some  chickens  and  a  dog 
as  evidences  of  civilization.  Jess  thought  it  was 
time  to  speak  to  somebody,  —  perhaps  she  wanted 
to  know  how  far  it  was  to  the  next  stopping- 
place, —  and  so  she  turned  in,  walked  round  the 
house  and  up  to  the  front  door,  which  was  in  the 
back  of  the  house,  and  would  have  walked  in  if 
I  had  not  drawn  the  rein.  As  it  was,  we  were  on 
the  threshold  of  an  open  door  before  we  were 
discovered.  We  surprised  the  quaintest  little 


A  DINNER   OF    HERBS  71 

couple  at  dinner,  a  boy  and  girl  who  looked  as 
if  they  were  out  playing  at  housekeeping  just  for 
a  day.  He  was  a  small,  dwarfed,  squatty  little 
man,  largely  hid  in  a  big  pair  of  boots  into  which 
he  had  been  dropped,  trouser-legs  and  all ;  with 
short  stubbed  hands,  a  face  with  the  early  down 
of  a  prospective  beard,  but  already  furrowed  with 
weather  and  work  marks  which  made  him  look 
prematurely  old.  The  girl  wife  was  fair,  shy, 
and  even  younger  than  the  boy  husband,  as  prim 
and  compact  in  her  attire  as  he  was  frowsy.  She 
was  dressed  in  a  bright  madder-red  dress  with 
sleeves  of  whitish  stuff,  the  whole  made  up  in  a 
cross  between  a  "  Mother-Hubbard  "  gown  and 
a  Swiss  peasant  waist. 

I  was  courteously  given  a  very  warm  drink  of 
water  in  a  very  new  tin  dipper,  and  told  that  it 
was  nine  miles  to  a  hotel  and  not  much  between 
here  and  there  in  the  way  of  houses.  As  the 
young  man  returned  the  dipper,  there  was  a 
whispered  aside,  followed  by  a  prompt,  "  You'd 
better  dismount  and  take  a  bite  with  us.  There's 
a  jag  of  grass  in  the  corner  of  the  garden  which 
the  horse  can  do  with  ;  we  have  no  grain."  By 
this  time  the  little  wife  was  by  his  side  urging  the 
hospitable  invitation,  adding  the  customary  femi- 


72  JESS 

nine  apology,  "  We  haven't  much  to-day,  but 
such  as  we  have  you  are  very  welcome  to."  "  A 
pair  of  woodpeckers  like  yourselves  shouldn't 
need  much,"  I  said,  "  living  up  here  close  to  the 
sky  among  these  grand  oak  trees." 

Of  course  we  stayed.  Jess  seemed  satisfied 
with  the  hay,  and,  after  revelling  in  a  big  wash- 
basin full  of  water  to  freshen  hands  and  face,  I 
sat  down  with  these  wood-birds  to  the  simplest 
little  table  with  the  fewest  settings  of  newest 
things,  the  blue-edged  dishes  and  the  cast-iron 
knife  and  fork  attractive  as  any  china  and  silver. 
The  little  woman  began  blowing  up  the  embers, 
and  got  down  the  teapot  to  make  tea  for  the 
guest,  a  process  which  I  interfered  with  as  un- 
necessary. When  we  three  were  at  the  table, — 
a  little  table  with  a  very  clean  table-cloth,  —  I 
noticed  the  bill  of  fare :  —  a  very  few  cold  saler- 
atus  biscuits,  something  which  might  have  been 
butter,  but  which  having  been  kept  in  a  house 
where  there  was  no  cellar  and  no  well,  was  in  a 
semi-fluid  state,  and  a  good  generous  dishful  of 
string-beans,  well  cooked  and  properly  seasoned. 
The  biscuits  soon  gave  out,  and  there  were  none 
to  replace  them,  as  the  young  hermits  had  been 
waiting  several  days  for  a  chance  to  get  a  sack  of 


A  DINNER    OF    HERBS  73 

flour  from  town.  But  there  were  plenty  of  beans, 
and  I  made  a  superb  dinner  of  them.  And  how 
prettily  and  promptly  the  story  of  it  all  came  out 
while  we  ate  beans  together:  their  twelve  weeks 
of  married  life,  his  heroic  purchase  of  eighty  acres 
of  the  heavy  timbered  land  on  the  side  hill  at 
three  dollars  an  acre,  for  which  he  could  pay 
forty  dollars  down,  all  the  rest  to  be  earned  on 
the  place. 

It  was  all  to  be  cleared,  but  he  had  always  been 
used  to  work  ;  he  was  not  afraid  of  that ;  and  the 
little  wife  said,  "He  has  nearly  an  acre  cleared 
already,  though  he's  been  working  out  at  haying 
whenever  he's  had  a  chance."  They  had  a  span 
of  two-year-old  colts ;  they  had  ten  chickens ; 
no  cow  yet ;  they  had  a  cat,  a  dog,  and,  to  com- 
plete the  inventory,  the  little  wife  said,  "  Papa 
gave  me  two  little  pigs  when  we  came  here,  but 
they  have  run  off  into  the  woods  somewhere, 
and  we  haven't  seen  them  for  a  month ;  I  don't 
believe  we  will  ever  see  them ; "  but  he,  with 
superior  masculine  faith,  said,  "  We'll  find  them 
in  the  fall  all  right,  and  so  fat  you  won't  know 
them." 

"  This  isn't  our  house,"  said  the  little  woman ; 
"  Fred's  got  the  logs  all  cut,  and  as  soon  as  the 


74  JESS 

busy  time  is  over  we'll  have  a  raising  and  have 
our  own  house.  This  is  an  awful  lonesome 
house ;  an  old  bachelor  built  it.  He  put  the 
door  to  the  east,  although  the  road  ran  on  the 
other  side.  But  I  would  have  put  it  fronting 
the  road.  I'd  rather  see  folks  than  the  sun, 
wouldn't  you  ?  "  She  didn't  get  very  lonesome 
except  when  Fred  was  away  working ;  then  a  day 
looked  like  a  week.  Her  folks  lived  nine  miles 
away ;  they  generally  walked  over  there  every 
Sunday,  and  her  father  drove  her  back  part  way. 
Fred  wanted  to  break  one  of  the  colts  for  her 
to  ride,  but  she  thought  he  was  too  young  yet. 
There  was  no  well  on  the  hill ;  they  would  have 
to  dig  deep  to  get  water,  much  of  the  way 
through  the  rock.  The  nearest  house  was  half 
a  mile  away.  She  carried  her  water  from  there. 
There  was  a  spring  down  in  the  woods  only 
about  half  as  far  away,  but  she  preferred  to  go 
to  the  house,  because  then  she  could  talk  with 
somebody.  Then  I  realized  how  wasteful  I  had 
been  of  the  water  with  which  I  had  bathed  my 
hands  and  face ;  and  the  pain  deepened  as  I  dis- 
covered by  the  droop  in  one  eye  and  the  halt 
in  one  limb  that  somewhere  and  somehow  the 
machinery  of  her  life  had  been  jolted  and  a  cog 


A  DINNER   OF    HERBS  75 

had  been  broken,  some  pulley  had  been  thrown 
ofF  its  bearings,  and  that  evermore  her  pail  of 
water  must  be  carried  with  a  limp.  I  felt  as 
David  did  when  his  devoted  followers  brought 
him  a  drink  from  the  old  home  spring  at  the 
risk  of  their  lives.  Suddenly  water,  the  most 
prodigal  of  nature's  gifts,  assumed  sacramental 
value. 

The  log  house  had  two  rooms.  In  the  next 
room  was  the  bed  with  its  gorgeous  patch-quilt, 
a  rag  rug  on  the  floor,  a  Boston  rocker,  and, 
unexpected  luxury  and  token  of  culture,  a  cabinet 
organ.  Into  this  room  I  was  invited  after  din- 
ner. No,  she  did  not  play ;  it  was  Fred's,  a 
present  from  his  grandmother ;  she  raised  him 
mostly,  and  because  he  loved  music  and  had 
been  good  to  her,  she  made  him  a  present  of 
this.  And  although  he  had  never  had  a  lesson 
in  his  life,  he  could  play  quite  well,  and  sing,  too. 
Fred  was  a  man  of  few  words.  She  did  the  talk- 
ing ;  but  without  any  of  the  professional  apolo- 
gies he  did  what  he  could  at  the  organ,  and 
played  and  sang  "Jesus,  Lover  of  my  Soul." 
This,  he  said,  was  the  only  piece  he  could  play 
with  both  hands,  but  there  were  several  other 
pieces  he  could  pick  out  with  one  hand,  and 


76  JESS 

she  joined  him  in  the  singing.  There  were 
several  things  that  the  expert  might  criticize  in 
the  music,  but  somehow  the  songs  fitted  into 
that  blistering  August  noon-hour  in  a  wonderful 
way.  The  trees  took  on  Sunday  hues,  the  birds 
seemed  to  listen,  and  something  rang  the  prayer 
bells  in  the  heart.  At  last  the  guest  was  invited 
to  join,  and  there  was  a  wonderful  trio  with  the 
stubble-scratched  hands  trying  to  strike  the 
chords  as  each  singer  went  his  own  way  on  his 
own  key  through  "  The  Sweet  By  and  By," 
"  Hold  the  Fort,"  and  "  Dare  to  be  a  Daniel." 
I  thought  with  comfort  of  Carlyle's  assurance 
that  the  nasal  dissonance  of  the  Scottish  Cove- 
nanters, as  they  labored  through  the  Psalms  of 
David  in  their  Highland  chapels,  was  lost  away 
down  the  valley  —  there  only  harmony  and 
melody  carried.  I  was  sure  there  was  praise 
in  the  singing,  aye,  thanksgiving,  too,  and  I 
did  not  doubt  it  reached  its  fitting  home ;  but 
I  was  pleased  with  the  fancy  —  which  amused 
me  so  much  that  I  could  scarcely  preserve  the 
dignity  of  the  occasion  —  that  even  the  All- 
hearing  Ear  would  give  our  songs  the  benefit 
of  a  little  distance  and  a  little  space  for  the  dis- 
cords to  drop  out. 


A   DINNER    OF    HERBS  77 

How  inevitable  were  the  prayer  levels  there 
reached,  how  natural  and  easy  the  few  spoken 
words  that  phrased  the  benedictions  of  life  and 
domesticated  the  human  soul  in  those  wilds. 
What  a  sweet  season  of  communion  that  hour 
was,  with  its  dinner  of  herbs !  how  regretful  was 
the  leave-taking  on  both  sides,  —  I  regretting 
the  briefness  of  my  glimpse  of  this  rustic  pair 
of  lovers  ;  they,  I  fancied,  settling  back  with  a 
half-conscious  touch  of  their  isolation  as  they 
stood  in  the  shadow  of  the  cabin  waving  their 
good-byes  until  Jess  and  I  were  promptly  lost 
in  forest  depths. 

I  think  this  story  worth  telling  because  it  fur- 
nishes an  indirect  commentary  upon  a  noble  text. 
How  palatable  and  nutritious  were  the  "  string- 
beans  "  garnished  by  love.  How  indigestible 
and  unwholesome  would  the  stalled  ox  have 
been  with  pride,  pomp,  and  hatred.  I  will  not 
venture  into  the  dreamland  of  the  vegetarian 
who  looks  for  that  guileless  time  when  human 
life  will  be  nourished  only  upon  the  bloodless 
products  of  field,  garden,  and  forest,  when  human 
hands  will  go  unsoiled  by  the  blood  of  fellow- 
creatures,  but  I  will  stop  to  note  how  royal  was 
the  hospitality  here  offered  us,  how  courtly  and 


;8  JESS 

gracious  was  the  entertainment  we  received. 
"You  are  welcome  to  it  such  as  it  is,"  said  the 
boy  "  house-band."  They  literally  divided  their 
morsel  with  me. 

How  their  consideration  shamed  the  inconsid- 
eration  of  their  too  careless  guest.  How  he 
wasted  the  water  without  asking  the  cost.  How 
he  devoured  the  biscuits  without  realizing  that 
all  they  had  were  on  the  table.  Since  that 
August  day  I  have  doubtless  been  guilty  of 
many  unworthy  thoughts  and  acts,  but  I  have 
done  nothing  that  has  made  me  feel  meaner 
than  the  wasting  of  the  water  which  that  lame 
girl  had  carried  half  a  mile  through  the  hot  sun. 
I  wish  it  might  sink  deep  into  memory,  this 
lesson  of  the  unkindness  that  springs  from  in- 
considerateness.  Oh,  how  unmindful  we  are  of 
the  well-being  even  of  those  we  love.  The  mali- 
cious deeds  we  are  prepared  for  ;  against  these  the 
world  is  in  a  measure  forearmed,  because  fore- 
warned. But  the  cruelty  of  thoughtlessness  is 
that  which  the  great  world  confronts  with  help- 
less hands.  No  armor  can  protect  us  from  the 
pangs  caused  by  stupidity.  How  little  does  one 
half  of  the  world  know  how  the  other  half  lives, 
and  yet  how  much  that  one  half  might  know  of 


A   DINNER    OF    HERBS  79 

the  other  if  it  only  would.  The  brutalities  born 
of  ignorance  are  brutalities  still,  and  the  correc- 
tive is  not  to  be  found  in  more  refinement  of 
feeling  but  in  greater  exercise  of  judgment.  How 
lavish  we  are  of  the  commonplace  abundance 
which  in  many  lives  must  give  way  to  sore  need 
and  pinching  economies.  Let  those  who  have  the 
unmeasured  fulness  of  Lake  Michigan  forced 
upon  them  day  and  night  by  the  ceaseless  throb- 
bing of  a  Corliss  engine  not  forget  that  some 
must  carry  their  water  in  tin  buckets,  up  hill, 
half  a  mile,  and  that  some  of  the  water-carriers 
must  needs  go  with  halting  step.  We  may  let 
others  plead  for  us  the  gracious  apology,  "  They 
did  not  mean  it,"  but  for  ourselves  we  may  not 
make  a  coward's  castle  out  of  our  stupidity. 
We  cannot  at  the  same  time  be  both  loving  and 
thoughtless. 

"  'Tis  not  by  guilt  the  onward  sweep 
Of  truth  and  right,  O  Lord,  we  stay ; 
'Tis  by  our  follies  that  so  long 
We  hold  the  earth  from  heaven  away. 

"These  clumsy  feet,  still  in  the  mire, 
Go  crushing  blossoms  without  end ; 
These  hard,  well-meaning  hands  we  thrust 
Among  the  heart-strings  of  a  friend. 


8o  JESS 

"The  ill-timed  truth  we  might  have  kept  — 
Who  knows  how  sharp  it  pierced  and  stung  ? 
The  word  we  had  not  sense  to  say  — 
Who  knows  how  grandly  it  had  rung  ? 

"  Our  faults  no  tenderness  should  ask, 
The  chastening  stripes  must  cleanse  them  all ; 
But  for  our  blunders  —  oh,  in  shame 
Before  the  eyes  of  heaven  we  fall." 

In  this  hill-top  home  we  find  a  much  needed 
contribution  to  the  labor  problem.  The  little 
man  who  faced  the  eighty  acres  of  wilderness 
because,  as  he  said,  he  was  not  afraid  of  work, 
had  accepted  the  high  philosophy  of  Felix  Holt, 
which  insisted  that  it  is  better  for  a  man  to  en- 
noble the  station  in  which  he  is  placed  than  to 
attempt  to  change  that  station.  How  are  the 
lives  of  these  two  children  of  the  forest,  veri- 
table "  babes  in  the  woods,"  to  be  saved  from 
hopeless  drudgery,  from  paralyzing  inanity  ?  Not 
by  any  communistic  agitation  of  Bellamy  dreams 
of  divided  profits  or  nationalized  labor,  but  along 
the  lines  of  love  and  beauty.  William  Morris, 
in  his  "  Hopes  and  Fears  of  Art,"  pointed  out 
some  years  ago  that  the  way  out  of  drudgery  for 
the  artisan  was  the  development  in  him  of  the 
love  for  the  beautiful  and  the  power  of  creating 


A   DINNER   OF   HERBS  81 

it.  Whenever  he  becomes  an  artist  in  his  voca- 
tion, if  it  be  but  the  shoeing  of  horses  or  the 
making  of  wheelbarrows,  labor  becomes  sweet 
and  toil  becomes  inspiring.  I  recall  the  enthu- 
siasm of  a  Dutch  gardener  who  talked  to  his 
cabbages  and  petted  them  when  they  did  well, 
who  caressed  his  melons  as  they  expanded  in  the 
sun,  and  could  almost  weep  for  them  when  ma- 
rauding boys  with  barbaric  coarseness  plugged 
them  before  they  were  ripe.  Without  this  en- 
thusiasm his  life  would  have  been  most  barren ; 
with  it  he  found  abundant  life,  though  deprived 
of  English  speech.  I  remember  the  pauper  at 
one  of  the  county  farms  which  Jess  and  I  once 
visited,  whose  days  were  made  happy  by  his 
love  for  the  pigs  which  it  was  his  special  busi- 
ness to  care  for.  How  he  washed  and  combed 
them,  taxed  his  ingenuity  to  prepare  for  them 
dainties,  had  a  name  for  each  one,  was  scarcely 
happy  when  out  of  their  sight.  These  are  illus- 
trations of  the  way  out  of  drudgery,  out  of  the 
grinding  degradations  of  toil.  The  grandmother 
did  more  for  that  boy  who  loved  music  when  she 
gave  him  the  organ  than  if  she  had  lifted  the 
mortgage  from  his  farm  or  cleared  his  eighty 
acres  of  their  trees. 


82  JESS 

What  we  ought  to  do  for  our  working-men 
to-day  is  to  put  the  love  of  music  into  their 
souls,  the  joy  of  love  into  their  hearts,  arouse 
home-making  pride  in  their  lives,  and  then  the 
puncheon  floor,  a  Boston  rocker,  a  patch-work 
quilt  and  a  diet  of  string-beans  will  make  them 
independent  as  nabobs  and  happier  than  mill- 
ionnaires.  I  quarrel  often  with  the  present  dis- 
tribution of  wealth.  There  are  many  who  do 
not  play  the  game  of  life  fairly,  who  get  more 
than  their  share  and  act  meanly  about  it.  I 
long  for  the  power  to  help  my  companions,  the 
toilers  of  the  world,  the  wage-workers  in  society, 
but  I  would  like  to  go  to  them  with  a  song  and 
not  with  a  groan,  I  would  like  to  divert  them 
from  their  woes  rather  than  dilate  upon  them. 
Let  the  labor  organizations  send  a  minstrel 
through  their  shops  rather  than  a  walking  dele- 
gate. Let  him  go  with  his  pipes  and  play  the 
tune  of  "  Over  the  Hills  and  Far  Away,"  and 
he  will  shorten  their  hours  of  labor  and  increase 
the  bread-purchasing  power  of  their  wages.  The 
hope  of  the  artisan  is  art,  the  salt  of  toil  is 
beauty.  "  Give  me  a  new  thought  that  I  may 
refresh  myself  with  it,"  said  the  suffering  Herder. 
"Read  me  something,  something  that  has  meat 


A  DINNER   OF    HERBS  83 

in  it,  something  from  Paul,"  said  the  dying  Lute 
Taylor. 

But  deeper  than  the  labor  problem  are  the 
problems  of  life,  and  this  dinner  of  herbs  reaches 
deep  into  these.  If  the  vest  is  thin  and  the 
heart  be  warm  the  case  is  not  so  bad,  but  let 
the  vest  be  ever  so  soft  and  sumptuous,  if  the 
heart  be  weak,  the  life  will  be  subject  to  chills. 
We  must  put  more  thought  into  the  life  of  the 
working-man.  The  monopoly  of  dollars  must 
be  met  by  a  combination  of  brains.  When  we 
have  learned  to  fight  the  syndicates  of  greed 
with  the  trusts  of  love,  then  the  working-man's 
triumphs  will  be  permanent  and  lasting. 

"Why  didn't  you  go  out  to  Dakota  or  Kansas, 
and  have  for  nothing  twice  as  many  acres  of  open 
prairie  and  avoid  all  the  work  of  the  clearing  with  a 
much  better  farm  in  the  bargain  ?  "  I  asked  of  my 
host.  He  replied,  "We  talked  that  over  before 
we  were  married.  All  her  folks  are  around  here. 
I  have  no  folks,  but  I  have  a  good  many  friends 
in  these  parts.  We've  always  lived  here,  and  we 
concluded  we  preferred  to  take  a  poorer  farm  and 
have  society,  work  harder  and  have  more  privi- 
leges." It  is  easy  to  imagine  with  what  a  smile 
of  pity  the  Dakota  farmer  or  the  favored  citizen 


84  JESS 

of  Kansas  would  receive  such  a  judgment  as 
that.  This  boy  and  girl  assuming  the  respon- 
sibilities of  husband  and  wife  may  have  erred 
in  their  judgment,  but  the  principle  upon  which 
they  based  it  was  profoundly  wise.  Let  him  who 
would  not  waste  life  seek  privileges  and  not  acres, 
or  acres  only  in  so  far  as  they  bring  privileges. 
Society,  in  the  non-conventional  sense  in  which 
this  unsophisticated  child  of  the  woods  used  the 
word,  is  preferable  to  wealth,  position,  or  power. 
There  are  but  few  adequate  compensations  for  the 
loss  of  human  relations  and  the  breaking  up  of 
the  blessed  and  slowly  forming  tissues  that  knit 
communities  into  one  fabric.  The  nomad's  life 
belongs  to  far  earlier  eras  in  human  history  than 
that  of  the  civilization  to  which  we  aspire.  The 
modern  tendency  to  live  on  wheels,  to  pull  up 
the  tent-stakes  and  move  on  at  the  slightest 
provocation  of  outward  attractions,  has  a  ten- 
dency to  disintegrate  that  slowly  forming  strati- 
fication of  the  most  human  thing  in  humanity, 
the  home.  Even  in  our  cities,  an  itching  to  be 
in  constant  communication  with  a  real  estate 
agent  is  an  evidence  of  man's  tendency  to  relapse 
into  the  gypsy  life  of  the  past.  The  Bedouins 
of  the  desert  find  their  spiritual  kindred  with  the 


A   DINNER    OF    HERBS  85 

Bedouins  of  the  boulevards.  They  are  illus- 
trations of  the  law  of  degeneracy  and  not  of 
progress. 

This  little  woman  in  the  woods  would  have 
cut  her  door  on  the  side  toward  the  road,  even 
though  she  missed  the  morning  sun.  And  she 
was  right ;  for  the  spectrum  of  the  human  face 
reveals  vitalizing  forces  richer  and  more  subtle 
to  the  human  soul  than  any  found  in  the  solar 
spectrum.  I  would  rather  live  in  an  alley,  stayed 
all  round  with  human  loves,  associations,  and 
ambitions,  than  dwell  in  a  palace  with  drawbridge, 
moat,  and  portcullis,  apart  from  the  community 
about  me,  alienated  from  my  neighbors,  unable 
to  share  the  woes  and  the  joys  of  those  with 
whom  I  divide  nature's  bounty  of  land  and  land- 
scape, of  air  and  sky.  It  is  a  serious  thing  to 
break  up  the  associations  of  youth  and  the  privi- 
leges of  companionship.  These  things  are  jus- 
tifiable only  when  better,  larger,  truer  home 
relations  are  secured.  Life  is  measured  by  its 
yield  of  contentment,  of  inspiration,  of  useful- 
ness, not  by  its  tax-rolls  or  bank  account.  The 
soul  is  as  thin  as  a  sheet  of  paper  if  it  is  con- 
scious of  nothing  but  personal  ambitions  and 
personal  interests.  The  great  soul  is  known  by 


86  JESS 

its  public  spirit  and  its  impersonal  anxieties. 
William  Lloyd  Garrison  grieved  for  the  crimes 
of  the  nation,  and  Abraham  Lincoln  carried  the 
woes  of  the  people  upon  his  heart.  I  have  had 
my  say  against  partisanship,  but  better  that  than 
the  individualism  which  knows  no  pride  in  place 
or  people.  Better  the  blind  enthusiasm  of  poli- 
tics than  the  selfish  poise  of  him  who  is  indiffer- 
ent to  home  or  native  land,  and  thrives  best  an 
alien  on  foreign  shores.  He  has  but  poorly 
solved  the  problems  of  life  who  has  not  planted 
himself  in  some  place  around  which  tender 
memories  and  helpful  associations  grow,  and 
near  some  friends  without  whom  life  is  more 
meagre  and  its  inspirations  less  exalted. 

"  For  him  no  minstrel  raptures  swell ; 
High  though  his  title,  proud  his  name, 
Boundless  his  wealth  as  wish  can  claim ; 
Despite  those  titles,  power,  and  pelf, 
The  wretch,  concentred  all  in  self, 
Living,  shall  forfeit  fair  renown, 
And  doubly  dying,  shall  go  down 
To  the  vile  dust,  from  whence  he  sprung, 
Unwept,  unhonored,  and  unsung." 

If  I   may  separate  the  inseparable  and  divide 
in    thought   what   cannot  be   divided  in   fact,   I 


A  DINNER   OF    HERBS  87 

would  say  that  the  two  souls  nesting  up  there 
in  the  woods  help  in  some  simple  but  real 
way  to  the  solution  of  the  problem  of  religion 
as  well  as  the  problem  of  life.  The  little  wife 
said  they  had  preaching  every  Sunday  in  her 
father's  and  mother's  neighborhood,  in  the  same 
schoolhouse  that  she  used  to  go  to  school  in. 
One  Sunday  'twas  the  Primitive  Methodists,  the 
other  Sunday  it  was  the  Adventists.  She  thought 
the  Adventist  was  pretty  smart,  although  her 
parents  belonged  to  the  other  church.  The 
little  man  disposed  of  both  with  the  curt  remark 
that  neither  of  them  had  anything  to  say  much, 
but  he  went  to  meeting  because  he  liked  to  hear 
folks  sing  and  thought  it  was  the  right  thing 
to  do,  anyway.  The  doting  wife  volunteered 
the  information  that  they  were  very  anxious  to 
have  Fred  take  charge  of  the  singing,  but  he 
was  too  modest,  though  he  could  do  it  better 
than  anybody  there.  He  thought  it  wrong  for 
one  to  pretend  to  do  something  he  wasn't  fit 
for,  and  he  had  never  had  any  chance  to  study 
music  —  never  had  had  but  one  term  of  singing 
school. 

Their  guest  carried  no  signs  of  his  profession. 
What  preacher  there  was  in  him  must  have  been 


88  JESS 

deep  below  the  surface.  And  so  to  this  secular 
horseman  they  freely  confided  their  religious  atti- 
tude. Neither  of  them  belonged  to  the  church. 
Both  of  them  felt  that  they  would  like  to,  but  she 
was  deterred  because  the  people  quarrelled  more 
in  the  church  than  out  of  it,  as  she  thought ;  and 
he  had  tried  and  tried  to  get  interested  but  never 
could  see  any  sense  in  much  that  they  said  and 
believed.  His  piety  touched  me,  but  it  was  not 
of  a  theological  kind.  Not  his  belief  or  non- 
belief,  but  the  unconscious  way  he  settled  into 
his  place  in  the  universe,  the  absence  of  the 
friction  which  too  much  selfishness  brings,  hinted 
to  me  of  the  coming  religion.  Life  seems  to  rise 
out  of  the  sea  of  unconsciousness  and  pass  through 
the  turbulent  development  of  consciousness,  to 
rise  again  into  that  upper  stratum  of  spontaneity 
which  speaks  of  a  volition  adjusted  to  the  infinite 
plan,  the  human  will  becoming  unconsciously  an 
exponent  of  the  Divine,  loving  the  nearest  things, 
doing  the  nearest  duties,  accepting  the  tasks 
offered  as  they  come  one  by  one. 

I  know  not  how  far  the  songs  of  those  married 
children  will  reach,  I  know  not  how  much  wisdom 
they  may  attain.  The  output  of  their  little  lives 
will  necessarily  be  rimmed  around  by  their  rock- 


A   DINNER   OF    HERBS  89 

ribbed  hills,  it  will  be  sheltered,  shadowed,  con- 
cealed by  the  oaks  that  seem  to  belittle  them. 
Some  day,  —  who  knows  how  soon,  —  the  wheel 
will  jump  another  cog,  the  other  eye  will  droop, 
there  will  be  a  halt  on  the  other  side.  Then 
the  water-carrying  will  cease,  and  perchance  the 
stumpy  little  man  before  his  "  eighty "  is  half 
'cleared  will  go  plodding  through  his  woods  alone, 
and  the  cracked  voice  will  be  more  cracked ;  but 
I  believe  their  lives,  however  short  and  meagre, 
were  an  investment  in  heavenly  things,  because 
they  accepted  as  a  divine  task  what  has  been 
falsely  called  the  primal  curse,  "In  the  sweat  of 
thy  face  shalt  thou  eat  bread."  Thorns  and 
thistles  cumbered  their  ground ;  on  the  herb  of 
the  field  did  they  feed,  even  a  few  lentils.  But 
they  saw  no  flaming  sword,  felt  no  curse.  They 
accepted  as  their  vocation  the  subduing  of  the 
earth,  which  has  proved  to  them  as  to  mankind, 
the  primal  privilege,  the  blessing  of  life.  Dean 
Swift  has  said  in  oft-quoted  words,  "  Whoever 
could  make  two  ears  of  corn,  or  two  blades  of 
grass,  to  grow  upon  a  spot  of  ground  where  only 
one  grew  before,  would  deserve  better  of  man- 
kind, and  do  more  essential  service  to  his  country, 
than  the  whole  race  of  politicians  put  together." 


go  JESS 

And  long  before  the  Christian  Dean  wrote  this, 
Zoroaster,  the  ancient  prophet  of  Persia,  had 
said,  "  The  third  place  where  the  earth  feels 
most  happy  is  where  one  of  the  faithful  waters 
ground  that  is  dry,  or  dries  ground  that  is  too 
wet,  and  cultivates  corn,  grass  and  fruit,"  "  Un- 
happy is  the  land  that  has  long  lain  unsown  with 
the  seed  of  the  sower,"  and  "  He  who  sows  corn 
sows  holiness.  When  the  wheat  is  coming  forth 
the  devas  are  destroyed." 

This  kind  of  piety  did  I  find  in  the  log  hut 
that  yielded  its  dinner  of  herbs,  —  the  simple 
piety  of  stainless  toil,  the  practical  piety  that 
seeks  to  bring  into  the  service  of  mind  the  forces 
of  nature,  the  piety  that  made  the  little  man  face 
the  Titanic  task  of  felling  a  forest  without  flinch- 
ing, the  piety  that  led  him  to  believe  in  the  power 
of  his  own  little  hands  to  convert  the  tangled  and 
ragged  forest  growth  into  grain  fields  and  orchards. 
"Apples  grow  real  well  in  the  timber  land  here 
when  it  is  cleared,  and  we  are  going  to  plant  some 
trees  just  as  soon  as  the  ground  is  fit  for  them," 
said  the  little  wife. 

Let  not  my  story  be  weakened  by  any  ideali- 
zation. Let  us  hold  hard  to  the  stronger  reality. 
He  who  imagines  that  poetry  is  allied  to  fiction 


A   DINNER   OF    HERBS  91 

need  look  for  no  poetry  here.  And  still  I  believe 
there  is  poetry  here,  but  it  is  the  poetry  that  lies 
in  the  solid  prose  of  life,  the  plain  facts  in  which 
these  lives  rested.  I  say  these  children  of  the 
woods  helped  solve  the  pressing  problems  in 
religion  to-day  by  simply  attending  to  their  busi- 
ness, by  doing  the  next  thing  in  a  cheerful,  kindly 
fashion,  by  facing  their  tasks  in  unconscious 
courage.  They  made  themselves  rich  in  their 
poverty.  They  sang  their  lonesomeness  away, 
and  they  never  knew  that  this  was  religion  ;  in- 
deed, so  akin  they  were  to  the  saint  and  the  sage 
that  they  did  not  know  they  were  poor  or  lone- 
some. Their  life  was  hid  with  Christ  in  God, 
and  they  did  not  know  it.  Perhaps  most  of  such 
living  must  partake  largely  of  this  unconscious- 
ness. They  solved  the  problem  of  religion  by 
being  that  which  they  could  not  explain  and  by 
doing  that  which  perhaps  they  never  tried  to 
justify.  Thus  they  won  for  themselves  the  re- 
spect of  their  scattered  neighbors,  and  in  due 
time  the  right  to  honorable  graves. 

You  and  I  will  not  believe  that  these  chil- 
dren of  the  woods  lived  their  lives  in  vain. 
They  help  us  to  measure  all  life  by  its  loyalty 
and  not  by  its  achievements.  The  story  is  a 


92  JESS 

backwoods    commentary    on    the    great    text    of 
Browning :  — 

"  Not  on  the  vulgar  mass 
Called  '  work  '  must  sentence  pass, 
Things  done,  that  took  the  eye  and  had  the  price  ; 

All  instincts  immature, 

All  purposes  unsure, 

That  weighed  not  as  his  work, 

Yet  swelled  the  man's  amount." 

A  dinner  of  herbs  to  a  tramping  horseman  was 
a  passing  hospitality,  the  value  of  which  ought  to 
be  measured  not  only  by  what  it  was  given  him 
to  leave  behind  but  by  that  which  he  carried 
away  with  him.  May  that  incident  in  the  tramp 
project  rays  of  kindliness  and  thoughtfulness 
across  the  distances  of  time  and  space  without 
intervention,  touching  lives  into  helpfulness  so 
that  that  dinner  of  herbs  becomes  an  abiding 
impulse,  quickening  hearts,  an  imperishable  food 
for  thought  that  will  renew  flagging  spirits,  re- 
fresh starving  souls.  May  the  cracked  notes  of 
the  impromptu  choir  that  sang  to  the  accom- 
paniment of  the  wheezy  little  organ  awaken  a 
refrain  of  peace  that  will  soothe  the  distracted 
and  tempestuous  life  of  the  city. 


A  DINNER    OF    HERBS  93 

Surely  the  stalled  ox  in  steaming  gravies  served 
in  hatred  and  with  selfishness  has  failed  to  yield 
the  benediction  of  the  spirit  which  this  dinner  of 
herbs,  sauced  in  kindliness  and  served  in  love, 
brings  to  us.  May  this  gleam  of  light  from  the 
backwoods  of  Wisconsin  dispel  a  darkness  that 
often  settles  upon  the  avenues,  and  may  the 
heart  of  the  little  woodsman  and  his  child  wife 
become  dynamos  of  the  spirit  from  which  shall 
stream  a  dart  of  heaven's  electric  light. 

"  How  far  that  little  candle  throws  its  beams, 
So  shines  a  good  deed  in  a  naughty  world." 


A  QUEST   FOR   THE    UNAT- 
TAINABLE 


CARCASSONNE 

"I'm  growing  old  ;   I've  sixty  years  ; 

I've  labored  all  my  life  in  vain ; 
In  all  that  time  of  hopes  and  fears 

I've  failed  my  dearest  wish  to  gain. 
I  see  full  well  that  here  below 

Bliss  unalloyed  there  is  for  none. 
My  prayer  will  ne'er  fulfilment  know — 

I  never  have  seen  Carcassonne, 

I  never  have  seen  Carcassonne  ! 

"You  see  the  city  from  the  hill  — 
It  lies  behind  the  mountain  blue  ; 

And  yet,  to  reach  it,  one  must  still 
Five  long  and  weary  leagues  pursue, 

And,  to  return,  as  many  more  ! 

Ah,  had  the  vintage  plenteous  grown  ! 

The  grape  withheld  its  yellow  store  — 
I  shall  not  look  on  Carcassonne, 
I  shall  not  look  on  Carcassonne  ! 

"  They  tell  me  every  day  is  there 
Not  more  nor  less  than  Sunday  gay  ; 

In  shining  robes  and  garments  fair,       * 
The  people  walk  upon  their  way. 

One  gazes  there  on  castle  walls, 
As  grand  as  those  of  Babylon, 

96 


A  bishop  and  two  generals  ! 

I  do  not  know  fair  Carcassonne, 
I  do  not  know  fair  Carcassonne. 

"The  vicar's  right.      He  says  that  we 
Are  ever  wayward,  weak,  and  blind. 

He  tells  us  in  his  homily 
Ambition  ruins  all  mankind. 

Yet  could  I  there  two  days  have  spent 
While  still  the  autumn  sweetly  shone, 

Ah  me,  I  might  have  died  content 
When  I  had  looked  on  Carcassonne, 
When  I  had  looked  on  Carcassonne." 

So  crooned  one  day,  close  by  Lamoux, 

A  peasant  double  bent  with  age. 
"Rise  up,  my  friend,"  said  I  ;   "with  you 

I'll  go  upon  this  pilgrimage." 
We  left  next  morning  his  abode, 

But,  heaven  forgive  him  !  half-way  on 
The  old  man  died  upon  the  road, 

He  never  gazed  on  Carcassonne. 

Each  mortal  has  his  Carcassonne. 

GUSTAVE  NADAUD. 


97 


A   QUEST    FOR    THE    UNAT- 
TAINABLE 

But  one  thing  I  do,  forgetting  the  things  that  are  behind, 
and  stretching  forward  to  the  things  which  are  before,  I  press 
on  toward  the  goal  unto  the  prize  of  the  high  calling  of  God 
in  Christ  Jesus.  — PHILIPPIANS  iii.  13,14. 

WHEN  I  was  a  boy,  the  Wisconsin  River  flowed 
by  my  home.  It  was  then  a  great  thoroughfare, 
which  carried  every  year  hundreds  of  millions  of 
feet  of  logs,  lumber,  shingles,  and  lath,  from  what 
was  then  the  great  pine  region  of  Wisconsin  to 
the  many  points  of  distribution  along  the  Missis- 
sippi River,  all  the  way  from  Prairie  du  Chien 
to  New  Orleans.  The  river,  in  the  spring  and 
fall  when  the  water  was  high,  was  picturesque 
with  great  floating  fields  of  pine,  moving  with 
the  current.  These  rafts,  travelling  in  fleets  of 
from  half  a  dozen  to  twenty  under  the  lead  of 
one  pilot,  peopled  the  water  and  the  immediate 
banks  with  a  swarm  of  raftsmen  who  again  were 
picturesque  features  of  the  landscape,  bold,  ath- 
letic, generally  intemperate,  but  oftentimes  chiv- 


A    QUEST   FOR   THE    UNATTAINABLE     99 

alric  to  women  and  generous  to  children.  Life 
among  them  was  held  cheap,  and  still  they  had 
a  code  of  honor  among  themselves  which  was 
exacting,  and  even  ideal.  A  raftsman  might  be 
profane,  was  probably  intemperate,  but  he  must 
not  be  mean.  He  must  not  cheat  at  cards,  lie 
himself  out  of  a  mistake,  or  leave  a  fellow-rafts- 
man swung  on  a  sandbar  without  lending  a  hand, 
although  giving  assistance  might  necessitate  a 
half-hour's  hard  pulling  at  the  oar,  a  long  walk 
back  to  the  brother  in  distress,  and  four  or  five 
hours  in  the  water  wet  to  the  waist.  In  those 
days  the  banks  of  the  Wisconsin  River  were  lined 
with  a  series  of  busy  little  villages,  thrifty  centres 
of  trade,  and  always  boisterous  places  of  resort. 
Raftsmen  generally  had  money,  or  its  equivalent, 
and  they  appreciated  a  place  where  they  could 
get  a  good  meal,  which  always  implied  a  large 
amount  of  liquid  refreshment.  The  life  of  these 
river  towns  was  based  upon  the  saloon,  the  store, 
the  lumber-yard,  and  the  tavern,  all  of  which 
found  a  fitful  patronage  in  the  raftsmen,  tramp- 
ing in  squads  on  their  way  back  after  abandon- 
ing the  floating  homes  that  carried  them  down. 

The  railroads  have  changed  all  this.     A   raft 
of  lumber  on  the  Wisconsin  River  is  now  a  rare 


zoo  JESS 

sight,  and  the  towns  whose  names  were  so  famil- 
iar to-  the  residents  of  that  riverside  forty  years 
ago  are  now  lost  villages.  Most  of  them  have 
long  since  been  forgotten,  and  the  names  that 
survive  have  often  been  transferred  to  an  adjoin- 
ing location  where  the  nearest  railway  station  has 
sprung  up. 

Port  Andrew,  situated  some  thirty  miles  from 
my  boyhood  home,  was  one  of  these  river  towns. 
Forty  years  ago  it  was  one  of  the  most  prosper- 
ous villages  in  Crawford  county.  It  had  the 
most  convenient  "  eddy  "  on  the  river  for  tying 
up  rafts.  It  was  a  good  lumber  point.  It  had 
an  abundant  supply  of  saloons  and  a  reputation 
for  being  a  tough  place,  where  high  stakes  were 
played  for,  and  riotous  carousals  were  frequent. 
I  had  always  thought  of  Port  Andrew  with 
ominous  distrust.  It  was  a  place  I  should  have 
been  afraid  to  enter  as  a  boy.  It  was  associated 
in  my  imagination  with  the  revolver,  the  bowie- 
knife,  the  saloon,  and  the  gambling  den. 

During  the  summer  of  1889,  Jess  and  I  went 
to  see  Port  Andrew,  and  planned  to  spend  the 
night  in  its  shelter.  We  found  it  less  than  a 
deserted  village,  for  the  very  site  upon  which 
it  was  built  has  been  mostly  washed  away  by 


A   QUEST   FOR   THE    UNATTAINABLE     101 

the  encroaching  river ;  and  the  place  where  the 
big  store,  the  great  hotel,  and  the  leading  lum- 
ber-yard once  stood  was  now  pointed  out  as  the 
main  channel  of  the  stream.  But  there  still  re- 
mained one  store  where  the  post-office  was  kept, 
and  where,  after  much  persuasion,  the  traveller 
and  his  horse  were  given  entertainment  over 
night.  It  was  a  restful  summer  evening ;  and 
the  landscape  was  delightful  with  its  wooded 
hills  forming  a  background  to  the  sluggish  river, 
the  sleeping  islands,  and  the  sleepier  little  ham- 
let, which  was  eight  or  ten  miles  away  from  the 
nearest  railroad  station.  There  was  no  sound 
of  violence  or  mark  of  rudeness.  The  only  sign 
of  human  passion  to  break  the  calm  of  the 
fading  day  came  from  the  boy  who  could  not 
induce  his  cows  to  come  across  from  the  island 
in  mid-stream.  They  preferred  to  stand  in  mid- 
channel  with  the  water  nearly  up  to  their  backs, 
affording  a  refreshing  retreat  from  the  flies  and 
mosquitoes. 

"  That  island,"  said  the  woman  who  acted  in 
the  multiple  capacity  of  shopkeeper,  post-mis- 
tress, and  landlady,  "  That  island  across  there  is 
called  l  Guthrie's  island '  because  Mr.  Guthrie 
has  always  been  in  the  habit  of  keeping  his 


102  JESS 

calves  over  there  in  the  springtime,  while  that 
other  island  farther  down  is  called  '  Long  Jim ' 
because,  in  the  rafting  days  before  I  was  born, 
there  was  a  raftsman  known  up  and  down  the 
river  everywhere  as  (  Long  Jim,'  he  was  so  tall. 
He  was  a  kind  of  a  good  fellow,  I  think.  Every- 
body liked  him,  and  one  time  he  tuk  sick  and 
died  on  his  raft,  and  they  tuk  and  rolled  him 
up  in  his  blanket  and  buried  him  on  that  island, 
and  that  island  has  been  called  c  Long  Jim '  ever 
sence."  Peace  to  the  ashes  of  Long  Jim  !  How 
many  men  have  striven  for  fame,  over  whose 
body,  cased  in  metallic  casket,  the  granite  shaft 
has  been  reared,  whose  names  will  pass  out  of 
sight  and  out  of  memory,  while  the  fame  and  the 
name  of  Long  Jim  are  still  kept  green  upon  the 
earth  because  his  roughened  comrades  found  him 
a  "good  fellow,"  and  "everybody  liked  him." 
To  him  an  island  has  been  given  as  his  sepul- 
chre, and  it  will  bear  his  name,  the  name  of 
"  Long  Jim,"  while  its  willowy  banks  resist  the 
shifting  currents  of  the  Wisconsin  River. 

But  not  all  of  Port  Andrew  is  scenery  and 
ancient  history.  There  were  at  that  time  two 
characters  living  there,  as  I  discovered,  whose 
acquaintance  I  thought  I  should  be  glad  to  cul- 


A   QUEST   FOR    THE    UNATTAINABLE     103 

tivate.  One  was  Thompson,  a  famous  dog- 
trainer,  whom  I  did  not  see,  to  my  regret.  But 
the  other  man  was  at  home.  To  meet  with  him 
was  of  itself  an  incident  worthy  a  week's  ride. 
Here  I  found  the  only  original  and  genuine 
"  perpetual-motion "  man  I  have  ever  encoun- 
tered. The  first  thing  that  attracted  the  atten- 
tion of  the  horseman  as  he  approached  what 
was  left  of  this  deserted  village  was  a  weird,  roof- 
less, tower-like  structure,  perhaps  twenty  feet 
square  and  thirty  feet  high,  exposing  at  the  top 
a  curious  combination  of  levers,  cranks,  and 
wheels,  showing  the  weather-marks  of  successive 
years  of  building.  There  was  something  uncanny 
about  the  whole  structure,  a  preternatural  atmos- 
phere which  Jess  did  not  like.  She  had  many 
misgivings  in  her  heart  about  the  propriety  of 
passing  it,  and  she  finally  consented  to  do  so 
entirely  on  the  strength  of  my  judgment.  I  had 
to  assume  all  the  responsibility. 

At  supper-time  the  landlady  was  quite  willing 
to  talk  about  this,  the  one  "  attraction  "  of  Port 
Andrew.  "  Have  you  never  heerd  tell  of  old 
Haney,  James  Haney  ?  Some  folks  reckon  him 
very  smart,  but  we  all  think  he's  mostly  crazy. 
He's  spent  the  worth  of  two  or  three  farms  in 


104  JESS 

making  that  contraption  there ;  and  if  he  don't 
die  pretty  soon,  I  reckon  he'll  have  to  go  to 
the  poorhouse,  for  every  cent  of  money  he  can 
raise  he  still  puts  onto  it.  He  onct  had  a  lot 
o'  land  here,  was  the  wealthiest  man  in  Port 
Andrew,  if  not  in  Crawford  county,  but  now 
it's  all  gone  but  one  forty,  and  he  wants  to  sell 
that,  and  just  as  soon  as  he  does,  he'll  put  it 
all  into  his  machine.  He  always  spends  all  his 
money  on  it,  and  then  he  stops.  He  never 
goes  in  debt ;  but  just  as  soon  as  he  gets  more 
money,  he  sends  for  the  carpenters  and  other 
kinds  of  workmen,  and  at  it  they  go  again. 
Every  evening  after  supper  them  times,  he  says, 
f  Wife,  pay  the  men,'  an'  when  that's  done,  he 
says,  c  Got  any  left  ? '  'n'  if  she  says,  *  Yes,'  then 
he  says,  c  Gentlemen,  come  again  to-morrow. 
When  the  money  stops,  we'll  stop ;  until  then, 
we'll  go  on.'  He  always  makes  my  man  mad. 
He  don't  like  him ;  but  I  think  there's  some- 
thing good  about  old  Haney.  I  like  to  hear  him 
talk ;  he  must  be  smart ;  and  then  it's  good  to 
see  a  man  so  earnest  like  and  never  discouraged. 
It's  nigh  onto  twenty  years  now  sence  I've  known 
him,  and  he  is  always  hopeful." 

That   night  I  dreamed    of  perpetual    motion, 


A   QUEST   FOR    THE    UNATTAINABLE     105 

and  in  my  sleep  I  thought  of  a  contrivance  that 
would  enable  one  to  take  Emerson's  advice, 
"  Hitch  your  wagon  to  a  star."  I  dreamed  of 
my  star  hewing  the  wood  and  carrying  the  water. 
Next  morning  I  paid  my  respects  to  this  rural 
genius,  this  pursuer  of  the  impossible.  I  was 
early,  but  he  was  earlier.  He  was  already  at 
work  at  his  bench  in  a  large  room  which  still  had 
the  shelving  and  some  remnants  of  the  merchan- 
dise that  belonged  to  a  country  store.  Here  he 
once  carried  the  largest  stock  of  goods  in  Craw- 
ford county.  Now  on  every  hand  were  designs 
and  models  of  various  inventions,  some  thirty  of 
which  were,  he  assured  me,  "  ready  for  patenting," 
any  one  of  which,  he  said,  was  worth  a  living,  but 
he  was  too  busy  to  attend  to  them.  All  of  them 
were  merely  accessories  to  the  main  idea,  the  chief 
object  of  his  life,  which  was  to  demonstrate  the 
possibility  of  continuously  using  as  a  mechanical 
power  the  most  universal  and  available  force  of 
nature,  gravitation.  Said  he,  "  Gravitation  is  the 
boy  that  will  work  for  you  day  and  night ;  he's 
always  in  harness,  if  you'll  only  give  him  a 
chance.  People  say  that  I  am  trying  to  get  up 
a  perpetual-motion  machine.  It  isn't  so.  I  am 
simply  trying  to  utilize  God's  force,  and  he  makes 


io6  JESS 

it  perpetual."  In  the  fond  hope  that  I  was  the 
man  of  capital  whom  he  had  always  been  expect- 
ing to  come  along  and  help  him  to  give  his  in- 
vention to  the  world,  or  at  least  thinking  that  I 
might  be  the  man  who  had  "  studied  nature  and 
could  understand  science,"  —  he  talked  to  none 
other  now,  he  said,  —  he  poured  the  story  of  his 
dreams,  his  disappointments,  his  philosophy,  and 
his  inventions  upon  me  for  two  delightful  hours. 
There  stood  the  straight,  sinewy  form,  eighty- 
three  years  old,  scarcely  showing  any  yielding  to 
the  weight  of  years,  with  the  kindly  gray  of  his 
eye  full  of  light,  his  voice  burdened  with  a  deep 
purpose.  He  had  always  had  ideas  which  he 
wanted  to  work  out,  but  he  stopped  to  make 
money,  and  never  had  time  for  them  until,  when 
he  was  sixty  years  of  age,  through  the  failure  of 
the  projectors  of  a  western  railroad  for  which  he 
had  contracted  a  great  number  of  ties,  he  lost  the 
bulk  of  what  constituted  in  that  section  an  ample 
fortune.  "  Then,"  said  he,  "  I  could  throw  up 
my  hat.  I  felt  free  to  go  to  work,  and  I  said, 
{ If  the  Lord  will  forgive  me  for  wasting  so  much 
time,  I  will  begin  now  and  try  to  make  up.'  ' 

He  was  putting  the  completing  touches  on  a 
rat-trap,  the  "  best  one   ever    made."     Rats    he 


A   QUEST   FOR   THE    UNATTAINABLE     107 

considered  the  rising  enemy  to  modern  civiliza- 
tion. He  had  studied  rats  for  years  ;  the  wrecks, 
skeletons,  and  ghosts  of  three  hundred  different 
experimental  rat-traps  lay  around  the  shop,  and 
they  had  all  gone  to  perfect  this  trap  which  was 
now  completed.  He  had  spent  twenty-five  hun- 
dred dollars  on  it,  and  had  never  sold  one.  It 
could  be  made,  he  said,  so  as  to  sell  for  two 
dollars  and  a  half,  and  it  would  "  catch  a  barrel- 
ful  of  rats  in  a  night  if  there  were  that  many 
around."  I  will  not  attempt  to  explain  the  rat- 
trap,  but  I  assure  you  I  found  the  philosophy  of 
the  trap  and  the  psychology  of  rats  profoundly  in- 
teresting, whatever  the  practical  value  of  the  con- 
trivance might  be.  The  yard  was  full  of  gates, 
self-openers,  self-closers,  self-latchers,  single  gates, 
double  gates,  garden  gates,  and  gates  with  canopies 
over  them  "for  the  benefit  of  lovers  who  will  come 
home  late  and  hang  over  the  gate  anyway,"  he  said. 
Even  the  neighbors  said  he  had  a  "  mighty  good 
gate,  sure  enough,"  but  the  young  man  with 
capital  and  energy  had  never  come  along  to  put 
the  gate  on  the  market,  and  he  had  no  time  for 
it  himself.  He  then  reverted  to  the  marvellous 
mechanism  in  the  adjoining  tower,  explained  his 
principles  with  admirable  clearness,  showing  in- 


io8  JESS 

timate  familiarity  with  many  of  the  results  of 
modern  science  and  with  scientific  terminology. 
"  People  say  I  am  crazy,"  he  said,  "  but  they  are 
not  able  to  show  me  the  fallacy  of  my  position." 
"  Did  the  thing  ever  move  at  all  ? "  I  asked 
my  landlady  before  visiting  him.  "Indeed  it 
did,"  she  replied.  "  Two  or  three  years  ago  he 
asked  a  lot  of  us  in  to  see  the  thing  start.  He 
let  me  touch  it  off  with  my  own  hand,  and  the 
thing  went  like  it  was  mad  and  frightened  us  all, 
even  the  old  man  himself,  I  think.  I  got  out  of 
the  house  quick,  I  tell  you,  and  it  went  for  half 
an  hour  or  so  until  it  ran  itself  all  to  pieces  and 
bruk  the  thing  up  so  that  the  poor  old  man  has 
never  had  money  enough  to  get  it  all  fixed  again, 
although  he  is  working  at  it,  and  seems  cheerful 
and  happy  like  in  the  thought  that  it  is  going  to 
go  some  day.  I  am  sorry  for  him."  I  heard  a 
different  comment  from  a  man  with  a  fish-pole, 
who  stopped  me  on  my  way  from  the  interview 
to  ask  what  I  thought  of  the  old  man's  machine. 
His  opinion  was,  "  The  Lord  has  sent  this  as  a 
punishment  on  that  old  man,  I  do  believe,  and 
he's  going  to  send  him  plumb  into  the  poor- 
house  just  because  he's  been  so  mighty  mean  in 
wastin'  money  on  such  a  thing  instead  o'  doing 


A   QUEST   FOR   THE    UNATTAINABLE     109 

good  with  it."  But  the  landlady  said  the  old  man 
with  a  fishing-rod  hadn't  anything  to  say,  for  he 
was  the  laziest  fellow  in  the  Kickapoo  valley. 

But  I  leave  this  young  man  of  eighty-three  in 
the  midst  of  his  rat-traps  and  automatic  gates, 
musing  upon  his  great  discoveries  and  dreaming 
dreams  more  real  than  the  realities  that  im- 
prisoned his  neighbors. 

"  Crazy  ?  "  and  you  join  with  the  neighbors  in 
saying  "  Of  course."  Yes,  doubtless,  but  there 
is  much  method  in  this  madness.  I  wish  some 
of  us  who  boast  of  our  sanity  might  share  his 
insanity,  might  have  enough  of  it  at  least  to  en- 
able us  to  work  as  diligently  at  our  tasks  as  he 
did  at  his ;  to  keep  our  minds  as  nimble,  to 
study  as  intently  and  devoutly  up  to  the  eighty- 
third  year  of  our  lives,  as  he  did.  "  The  men 
around  here  don't  have  much  to  do  with  the  old 
man.  They  think  he  is  a  kind  of  a  fool,  but  I 
tell  you  he  is  no  fool,  and  I  pity  him,"  said  my 
landlady.  Few  characters  whom  it  has  been  my 
fortune  to  find  in  my  vacation  wanderings  have 
stayed  with  me  with  more  helpfulness  and  encour- 
agement than  this  floundering  fool,  as  he  seemed 
to  his  neighbors ;  this  prophetic  enthusiast  as  I 
prefer  to  call  him.  Poor  old  Haney,  the  perpet- 


i  io  JESS 

ual-motion  man  !  I  have  long  since  ceased  to 
pity  him,  because  there  are  so  many  more  favored 
and  more  sensible  than  he  that  have  stirred  my 
pity  more. 

"  No  tears  are  sadder  than  the  smile 
With  which  I  quit  Elias.      Bitterly 
I  feel  that  every  change  upon  this  earth 
Is  bought  with  sacrifice.      My  yearnings  fail 
To  reach  that  high  apocalyptic  mount 
Which  shows  in  bird's-eye  view  a  perfect  world, 
Or  enter  warmly  into  other  joys 
Than  those  of  faulty,  struggling  human  kind." 

So  sang  George  Eliot  of  another  "  crank "  as 
the  American  slang  goes,  a  "  Minor  Prophet," 
as  she  called  him.  But 

"  I  too  rest  in  faith 

That  man's  perfection  is  the  crowning  flower, 
Toward  which  the  urgent  sap  in  life's  great  tree 
Is  pressing,  —  seen  in  puny  blossoms  now, 
But  in  the  world's  great  morrows  to  expand 
With  broadest  petal  and  with  deepest  glow." 

The  old  alchemists,  seeking  the  elixir  of  life, 
found  what  was  better,  the  elements  of  chemistry. 
The  Spaniard,  as  the  story  goes,  chasing  a  moun- 
tain goat  which  he  probably  did  not  catch,  found 
at  the  roots  of  the  shrub  that  gave  way  under  his 


A   QUEST   FOR   THE    UNATTAINABLE     in 

grasp  as  he  climbed,  the  gold  of  Peru,  which  was 
his  nearest  approach  to  the  Eldorado  he  sought. 
Bessemer,  in  trying  to  make  wrought  iron,  dis- 
covered the  great  steel-making  process.  Colum- 
bus sailed  in  search  of  India  ;  God  showed  him 
America.  The  Pilgrim  fathers  came  to  establish 
a  colony ;  God  made  of  them  a  republic.  Thus 
ever  does  his  deliberation  over-reach  our  impetu- 
osity. Humanity's  anticipation  is  always  smaller 
than  the  divine  realization.  The  toy,  the  coveted 
picture  book,  the  education,  the  position,  the  liv- 
ing, the  farm,  the  home,  the  possessions  men 
have  dared  to  hope  for,  one  after  another  are 
given.  Companionship,  sympathy,  love,  come 
in  the  wake  of  the  beatific  vision,  not  in  antici- 
pation of  it.  Dream  after  dream  lures  man 
onward,  and  all  the  time  he  is  not  dealing  with 
illusions,  he  is  not  chasing  will-o'-the-wisps,  but 
following  the  beckoning  hand  of  destiny. 

"  Then  is  the  lyric  dream 

Not  given  to  them  in  vain  !     Old  death-wounds  still 
Set  free  the  spirit  for  eternal  life  ; 
In  every  dirge  there  sleeps  a  battle-march  ; 
And  those  slain  heroes  of  the  past  may  tell 
How  they  attained,  who  only  seemed  to  fail ; 
And  they  that  fell  of  old,  on  those  gray  fields, 
By  their  red  Death,  enable  us  to  live  ! " 


ii2  JESS 

God  puts  us  to  work  on  these  small  jobs  that 
our  larger  mission  may  be  fulfilled.  Let  no  one 
dare  distrust  the  forward  beckonings.  Ignorance 
places  the  golden  age  behind.  We  cannot,  if 
we  would,  return  to  it.  Knowledge  places  the 
golden  age  ahead  of  us.  We  must  strive  for  it. 
The  simplicity  of  Eden,  whatever  it  was,  is  out 
of  the  question  now.  It  is  past.  The  triumph 
of  spirit,  the  reign  of  reason,  the  kingdom  of 
love  is  ahead.  We  must  look  forward  to  it. 

Our  old  friend  at  Port  Andrew,  missing  his 
perpetual  motion,  may  have  perfected  a  rat-trap 
that  will  yet  be  a  blessing.  If  he  did  not  suc- 
ceed in  substituting  gravitation  for  horse-power, 
he  may  have  developed  the  gate  that  will  stay 
closed  and  keep  the  cattle  out  of  the  corn.  If 
we  are  to  have  larger  things,  there  must  be 
place  for  those  who  dream  of  larger  things. 
The  sailor  who  dares  steer  toward  a  star  may 
make  a  port. 

"  All  great  works  in  this  world  spring  from  the  ruins 
Of  greater  projects,  —  ever,  on  our  earth, 
Men  block  out  Babels,  to  build  Babylons." 

But  not  on  the  material  plane  is  the  story  of  my 
perpetual-motion   man   most    suggestive.       John 


A   QUEST   FOR   THE    UNATTAINABLE     113 

Brown  wrote,  a  few  days  before  his  execution : 
"  I  have  enjoyed  remarkable  composure  and 
cheerfulness  of  mind  ever  since  my  confine- 
ment, and  it  is  a  great  comfort  to  feel  assured 
that  I  am  permitted  to  die  for  a  cause,  not 
merely  to  pay  the  debt  of  nature  as  all  must." 
It  is  splendid  to  have  a  cause  to  live  for  as 
well  as  to  die  for.  The  most  pitiable  life  is  the 
aimless  life.  Heaven  help  the  man  or  woman, 
the  boy  or  girl,  who  is  not  interested  in  any- 
thing outside  of  his  or  her  own  immediate  com- 
fort and  that  related  thereto,  who  eats  bread  to 
make  strength  for  no  special  cause,  who  pur- 
sues science,  reads  poetry,  studies  books,  for  no 
earthly  or  heavenly  purpose  other  than  mere 
enjoyment  of  acquisition  ;  who  goes  on  accumu- 
lating wealth,  piling  up  money,  with  no  definite 
or  absorbing  purpose  to  apply  it  to  anything  in 
particular.  These  are  the  men  that  are  in  the 
way.  Who  would  not  prefer  to  be  the  old 
Haney,  who,  in  his  eighty-third  year,  walked 
with  nimble  and  martial  steps  toward  the  poor- 
house,  with  head  and  heart  full  of  a  dream  of 
perpetual  motion  or  something  better,  rather  than 
his  complacent  and  "sensible"  critic,  who  had  the 
reputation  of  being  the  laziest  lout  in  the  valley  ? 


ii4  JESS 

Who  would  not  be  a  Mungo  Park  drowning  in 
the  river  he  had  discovered,  or  a  Sir  John  Frank- 
lin freezing  among  the  icebergs  he  had  attempted 
to  conquer,  rather  than  your  multi-millionnaire 
fattening  upon  his  unconsecrated  millions  with 
no  divine  purpose  in  his  soul,  who,  dying,  will 
leave  a  world  that  will  hasten  to  forget  him  ? 

I  would  not  say  with  the  Archbishop  of 
Toledo,  when  Cervantes  was  old,  poor,  and 
neglected,  "  Heaven  forbid  that  his  necessity 
should  ever  be  relieved,  since  it  is  his  poverty 
that  makes  the  world  rich  "  ;  but  I  will  say  that 
I  would  rather  be  the  author  of  "  Don  Quix- 
ote," though  poor  and  miserable,  than  be  the 
Archbishop  of  Toledo,  fat,  healthy,  and  com- 
placent. The  world  has  need  of  inspired  men, 
—  those  who  believe  in  the  unattainable  and 
those  who  are  practical  enough  to  venture  the 
impossible.  The  only  things  history  seems  to 
care  much  about  are  the  impossible  things ;  and 
they  are  most  loved  who  have  dared  the  most 
in  the  interest  of  the  impossible,  they  who  have 
defied  a  doubting  world,  proving  thereby  the 
possibilities  hid  in  the  world's  impossibilities. 

"  That  low  man  sees  a  little  thing  to  do, 
Sees  it  and  does  it : 


A   QUEST    FOR   THE    UNATTAINABLE     115 

This  high  man,  with  a  great  thing  to  pursue, 

Dies  ere  he  knows  it. 
That  low  man  goes  on  adding  one  to  one ; 

His  hundred's  soon  hit : 
This  high  man,  aiming  at  a  million, 

Misses  a  unit. 
That,  has  the  world  here  —  should  he  need  the  next, 

Let  the  world  mind  him. 
This,  throws  himself  on  God,  and  unperplexed, 

Seeking  shall  find  him." 

But  I  dare  not  stop  without  recognizing  still 
more  frankly  the  unutterable  and  apparently  un- 
mitigated pathos  which  hangs  around  the  life  of 
the  humble  Port  Andrew  inventor,  —  a  pathos 
which,  indeed,  hangs  around  every  life  that  is 
devoted  to  an  ideal.  There  is  an  unanswered 
prayer,  an  unrealized  dream  in  every  life.  There 
is  a  deep-rooted,  far-reaching  disappointment  in 
store  for  the  noblest  children  of  earth. 

I  can  see  but  two  rifts  in  the  cloud  through 
which  light  streams  at  such  a  time.  I  remember 
that  the  soul  prefers  the  pain  of  disappointed  aspi- 
ration to  the  joys  of  satisfied  ambition.  It  is  bet- 
ter to  fall  crushed  under  the  wheels  of  the  car 
of  progress  which  we  are  trying  to  move  for- 
ward than  to  fix  that  same  car  by  our  compla- 
cent weight  to  the  place  upon  which  it  stands ; 


u6  JESS 

for  inasmuch  as  other  men  have  labored  and 
we  have  entered  into  their  reward,  so  our  toil, 
be  it  ever  so  humble,  will  either  move  the  car 
or  help  grade  the  road  over  which  it  has  to 
pass,  smoothing  the  rough  places  perhaps  with 
our  bones. 

The  other  rift  in  the  cloud  is  the  hope  which, 
in  proportion  as  we  understand  the  pathos  of 
the  disappointment,  rises  into  the  demand  of 
justice,  an  argument  that  the  lines  must  con- 
verge farther  on,  that  the  dream  will  come  full 
circle  when  it  is  orbed  in  eternity,  that  no  va- 
grant wish  of  a  loyal  soul  can  be  left  unful- 
filled, no  clumsy  effort  of  a  consecrated  will  go 
unrewarded.  As  there  is  a  breast  prepared  for 
the  expectant  babe,  a  light  for  the  eye  formed 
in  darkness,  a  sound  for  the  ear  built  in  silence, 
so  there  is  a  reality  to  meet  the  prophetic  grop- 
ings  of  the  human  soul.  The  expectations  of 
the  earnest,  the  desire  of  the  good,  the  dream 
of  the  enthusiast,  whether  in  the  Bible  or  out 
of  it,  are  promissory  notes  of  the  Almighty,  and 
his  notes  are  good.  Only  the  fish  in  the  rivers 
that  flow  through  sunless  caverns  are  eyeless, 
and  only  dead  souls  are  visionless.  Dying  na- 
tions look  backward.  Growing  nations  look  for- 


A   QUEST   FOR   THE    UNATTAINABLE      117 

ward.  I  believe  in  immortality  because  God  has 
given  me  a  prophetic  appetite  for  it.  This  law 
is  always  the  compensation  and  comfort  of  the 
poet.  It  is  the  truth  groped  after  by  Nathaniel 
Ward  of  the  seventeenth  century  in  the  quaint 
lines :  — 

"  There  Peace  will  go  to  War, 
And  Silence  make  a  noise ; 
Where  upper  things  will  not 
With  nether  equipoise. 

"The  upper  World  shall  rule, 
While  Stars  will  run  their  race  ; 
The  nether  World  obey, 
While  people  keep  their  place." 

This  is  the  faith  magnificently  stated  by  the  great 
Victorian  laureate  of  the  nineteenth  century  :  — 

"  That  nothing  walks  with  aimless  feet ; 
That  not  one  life  shall  be  destroyed, 
Or  cast  as  rubbish  to  the  void, 
When  God  hath  made  the  pile  complete." 

Perhaps  they  who  feel  their  limitations  most 
keenly  live  most  in  the  land  of  the  delectable. 
They  are  the  truest  residents  in  the  unattainable 
country  who  are  most  homesick  for  it.  Car- 
cassonne was  only  five  leagues  away  from  the 


n8  JESS 

home  of  the  vine-dresser  in  the  poem,  who  died 
before  visiting  the  beautiful  city.  The  long 
years  had  given  him  no  opportunity,  the  hunger 
of  his  life  was  unsatisfied,  he  never  saw  the 
vision ;  but  the  Carcassonne  in  his  heart  may 
have  been  a  more  beautiful  city  than  that  on  the 
mountain-side. 

"  The  old  man  died  upon  the  road, 
He  never  ga?,ed  on  Carcassonne. 
Each  mortal  has  his  Carcassonne." 

Yes,  let  us  thank  God  for  this.  The  Carcas- 
sonne in  every  heart  is  the  best  thing  in  it,  for 
it  has  come  of  growth  and  it  is  the  sure  pledge 
of  growths  yet  to  come.  The  unattained  city 
that  rests  on  the  side  of  the  Delectable  Mountain 
which  we  have  never  visited  measures  the  value 
of  life  in  this  world,  and  is  the  earnest  of  life 
to  come. 


THE    RIVER    OF    LIFE 


THE   RIVER   OF  LIFE 

Thou  in  thy  narrow  banks  art  pent : 
The  stream  I  love  unbounded  goes 
Through  flood  and  sea  and  firmament; 
Through  light,  through  life,  it  forward  flows. 

I  see  the  inundation  sweet, 

I  hear  the  spending  of  the  stream 

Through  years,  through  men,  through  nature  fleet, 

Through  love  and  thought,  through  power  and  dream, 

*  *  #  *  *  # 

So  forth  and  brighter  fares  my  stream, — 
Who  drink  it  shall  not  thirst  again  ; 
No  darkness  stains  its  equal  gleam, 
And  ages  drop  in  it  like  rain." 

RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 


THE    RIVER    OF    LIFE 

A  river  with  its  streams  shall  make  glad  the  city  of  God. 

PSALM  xlvi.  4. 

RIVERS  have  been  the  highways  of  civilization. 
Along  the  banks  of  the  Nile,  the  Euphrates, 
and  the  Indus  did  the  earlier  nations  rise.  Mem- 
phis, Thebes,  Babylon,  Rome,  Paris,  and  London 
were  mighty  marts  first  fertilized  by  rivers. 
Eleven  States  of  our  Union  bear  the  names  of 
rivers.  The  sanctities  of  life  have  gathered  along 
the  banks  of  running  streams.  The  Jordan  flows 
through  the  Bible,  making  green  its  pastures  and 
filling  its  valleys  with  flowers.  Although  the 
Jew  hung  his  harp  on  the  willow  trees  by  the 
rivers  of  Babylon,  the  natives  erected  their 
shrines  along  its  banks.  The  devout  Hindu 
soothes  his  soul  and  magnifies  his  life  if  he 
may  but  bathe  his  body  in  the  Ganges.  Poetry, 
like  religion,  —  indeed  poetry  is  the  blossom  and 
fruit  of  religion,  —  has  delighted  in  the  river. 
Shakespeare  had  his  Avon,  Wordsworth  his 
Yarrow,  Longfellow  his  Charles,  and  Emerson 


122  JESS 

his    Musketaquid.      Wordsworth   well    says    of 
rivers, 

"And  never  did  genius  slight  them  as  they  go." 

The  river  has  lost  none  of  its  potency,  its 
sanctity  is  not  a  thing  of  the  Orient  or  for 
ancient  peoples  alone.  The  indignant  king  of 
Syria  was  right  when  he  resented  the  superior 
claim  which  Elisha  made  for  the  waters  of 
Jordan,  and  said,  "  Are  not  Abana  and  Pharpar, 
rivers  of  Damascus,  better  than  all  the  waters  of 
Israel  ?  May  I  not  wash  in  them  and  be  clean  ?  " 
What  Naaman  said  of  his  Syrian  streams  I  am 
inclined  to  say  of  the  waters  of  the  Wisconsin, 
from  whose  banks  I  come  with  my  life  renewed 
by  its  hillslopes  and  valleys.  Trees,  grasses, 
and  birds  have  ministered  unto  me,  but  better 
than  all  these  has  been  my  communing  with  the 
river.  Morning,  noon,  and  night,  for  six  weeks, 
from  the  porch  of  Westhope  cottage  on  Tower 
Hill,  have  I  watched  the  gliding  stream  in  its 
broad  two-mile  sweep,  edging  the  hills,  girdling 
the  islands,  threading  the  bridge.  I  have  never 
wearied  in  watching  its  silent  flux  out  of  mystery 
into  mystery.  When  the  parching  sun  blistered 
the  land,  burnt  the  fields  and  dusted  the  roads, 


THE    RIVER   OF    LIFE  123 

the  river,  undismayed,  slaked  the  ever-rising 
thirst  of  its  sands.  When  the  storms  came,  the 
rains  fell,  and  the  trees  swayed,  moaned,  and  gave 
thanks,  the  river  made  no  halt,  it  simply  moved 
on.  High  up  on  the  hillslope  I  was  perched, 
and  it  seemed  to  me  at  times  that  there  was  no 
poetry  so  fine,  no  picture  so  serene,  no  romance 
so  bewitching  as  that  Wisconsin  river,  in  whose 
waters  I  bathed  as  a  child,  in  whose  skirting 
woods  I  hunted  the  cows  as  a  barefooted  boy, 
along  whose  banks  I  dreamed  and  toiled  as  a 
youth,  and  with  whose  every  feature  I  thought  I 
had  lived  familiarly  as  a  man,  though  in  those 
weeks  of  rest  I  found  what  I  never  knew  before. 
I  reluctantly  left  it  behind  with  its  lessons  but 
partly  conned,  its  wisdom  unexhausted,  glad  to 
work  for  ten  months  more  if  at  the  end  of  that 
time  I  may  be  rewarded  by  another  season  of 
courtship  with  my  river.  The  waters  of  the 
Wisconsin  are  to  me  more  than  ever  a  part 
of  that  water  of  life  which  slakes  the  thirst 
of  the  soul  as  it  cools  the  fevered  pulse  of 
the  body.  It,  like  its  ancient  companions,  is 
a  river  of  God,  flowing  for  the  "  healing  of  the 
nations." 

The    Wisconsin    bears    no    traffic    now.       Its 


124  JESS 

shores  have  been  deserted  by  the  tradesman.  Its 
once  busy  villages  and  rural  commercial  centres 
have  been  lured  away  by  the  whistle  of  the  steam- 
engine  ;  the  railroad  has  released  man  from  the 
troubles  and  anxieties  of  navigating  its  inadequate 
waters.  He  who  is  still  made  restless  by  the 
passion  of  a  savage  ancestry  and  seeks  to  amuse 
himself  by  taking  life,  vexes  its  waters  to  little 
purpose ;  his  pole  and  line  fret  the  sliding  waters 
chiefly  that  he  may  catch  new  lessons  of  patience, 
and  that  he  may,  if  indeed  his  life  is  wanting 
in  such  tutorship,  be  disciplined  by  disappoint- 
ment. Those  who  know  most  of  the  habits  of 
our  river  insist  that  it  is  the  happy  home  of 
"  plenty  of  fish,"  but  the  fish  have  been  made 
wise  by  civilization,  or  what  amounts  to  about  the 
same  thing,  man  in  his  haste  and  care  for  better 
things,  has  lost  the  secret  and  forgotten  the  art  of 
catching  them ;  and  I  do  not  regret  this.  Yet  of 
this  unused,  unyielding,  and  unsung  river  of  the 
West,  I  must  borrow  the  poet's  lines  to  speak  my 
love  and  gratitude. 

«*  Thy  ever-youthful  waters  keep 
A  course  of  lively  pleasure  ; 
And  gladsome  notes  my  lips  can  breathe, 
Accordant  to  the  measure. 


THE    RIVER   OF    LIFE  125 

The  vapours  linger  round  the  Heights, 
They  melt,  and  soon  must  vanish  ; 
One  hour  is  theirs,  nor  more  is  mine  — 
Sad  thought,  which  I  would  banish, 
But  that  I  know,  where'er  I  go, 
Thy  genuine  image,  Yarrow  ! 
Will  dwell  with  me,  to  heighten  joy, 
And  cheer  my  mind  in  sorrow." 

This  river  "with  its  streams  makes  glad  the 
city  of  God  "  whenever  it  is  known  in  its  relations, 
for  until  then  it  is  not  known  at  all.  That  stretch 
of  water  bending  its  arm  around  the  stolid  bluff 
may  seem  the  most  commonplace  of  prosaic 
things,  the  same  old  river  that  it  was  over  forty 
years  ago  when  first  I  knew  it,  wrestling  unsuc- 
cessfully with  the  shifting  sands.  However  fields 
and  homes  and  peoples  change,  it  appears  still  the 
same.  When  we  relate  in  thought  the  river  to 
that  exhaustless  source  of  its  being  that  comes 
from  cloud-land,  the  benignant  feedings  of  silent 
dews,  the  mystic  springs  born  in  snow-land  and 
stored  in  rocky  cisterns,  the  thousand  rivulets 
that  quietly  replenish  it  as  they  creep  through 
valley  and  ravine,  under  shady  trees  and  through 
marshy  glades,  then  the  visible  stream  suggests  to 
the  mind  invisible  cycles  that  reach  out  laterally 


126  JESS 

through  valleys  and  up  hills  to  mountain  heights, 
and  kiss  the  cloud,  the  bountiful  mother  of  rivers. 
When  we  realize  that  every  drop  in  the  river-bed 
is  a  pilgrim  hasting  with  unwearied  feet  to  that 
holy  shrine  it  knows  not  of,  that  home  in  the 
mystic  deep,  and  that  when  it  finds  its  pilgrimage 
ended  in  the  ocean's  breast  it  will  be  again  called 
up  higher,  wooed  by  the  sun  and  sent  back  again 
to  travel  its  beautiful  round,  then  it  becomes  the 
most  changeable  of  changing  things.  That 
sweep  of  river  which  has  lulled  and  soothed  me  is 
but  the  visible  link  in  the  endless  chain  of  being ; 
it  was  the  seen  moment  in  the  unseen  round  of 
existence,  a  segment  in  the  divine  circle  of  law,  a 
beat  of  the  rhythmic  clock  of  nature.  This  river 
is  the  mother  of  the  fern,  the  father  of  the 
meadow,  the  partner  of  the  farmer,  the  friend  of 
the  birds.  It  has  underground  connection  with 
the  pine  tree,  clinging  desperately  to  the  naked 
face  of  the  precipitous  rock  which  enters  into  the 
rugged  architecture  of  Tower  Hill.  We  wonder 
how  it  lives  up  there  where  everything  is  dry, 
barren,  and  blistered,  but  the  river  knows  and  the 
tree  knows.  The  river  says,  "  It  is  easy  for  me 
to  reach  up  to  it  when  the  root  reaches  down  to 
me,"  and  the  pine  says,  "  It  is  easy  to  live  only 


THE    RIVER    OF    LIFE  127 

so  I  can  strike  one  root  into  the  water  level  of  the 
river." 

Looked  upon  in  this  light,  the  river  is  a  flux  in 
permanence.  It  is  the  familiarity  of  ceaseless 
change,  the  stability  of  endless  motion.  The 
river  that  at  night  gives  back  the  glory  of  the  sun- 
set, nay,  contributes  one-half  of  the  glory  itself,  is 
not  the  river  that  welcomes  the  sunrise.  That 
river  is  forty  miles  away,  and  the  new  river  has 
come  since  last  night  from  the  hills  of  Baraboo, 
forty  miles  up-stream.  The  mould  is  the  same, 
but  the  material  is  different ;  the  form  remains, 
the  substance  has  changed.  And  still  there  is  the 
sense  of  permanence  that  overlays  the  evanescent, 
and  the  stream  in  going  does  not  rob  us.  We 
should  lose  the  river  if  by  any  means  it  were 
compelled  to  tarry  with  us  and  to  give  over  its 
journeying. 

Again,  as  we  look  on  the  river,  it  becomes  the 
great  worker  of  nature,  the  tireless  toiler  ;  it  is 
God's  excavator,  the  world's  ploughman.  What 
a  burden-bearer  it  is  !  How  it  polishes  the  peb- 
bles, carves  the  hills,  moulds  the  bluffs,  and  builds 
its  islands.  Geikie,  the  geologist,  estimates  that 
the  Mississippi  River  carries  annually  into  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico  solid  matter  enough  to  build  a 


128  JESS 

prism  two  hundred  and  sixty-eight  feet  in  height 
with  a  base  of  one  square  mile.  The  port  of 
Adria,  the  thriving  commercial  town  of  ancient 
times,  which  gave  its  name  to  the  Adriatic  Sea,  is 
now  fourteen  miles  inland.  The  Amazon  colors 
the  water  of  the  ocean  three  hundred  miles  out 
from  shore.  So  busy  and  so  effective  a  toiler  is 
the  river  that  what  once  the  geologists  thought 
was  produced  by  some  mighty  spasm  of  nature, 
some  special  hammer-strokes  of  God,  they  are 
now  quite  sure  is  but  the  work  of  the  patient 
rivers  of  the  world,  the  silent  streams  that,  un- 
asked and  unthanked,  work  away  day  by  day, 
smoothing  out  this  rough  old  world  of  ours,  fer- 
tilizing arid  sand-plains  and  draining  the  bog-holes 
of  earth.  One  little  stream  in  the  Grand  Canon 
of  Colorado  has  chiselled  out  a  gorge  three  hun- 
dred miles  long,  and,  in  some  places,  six  thousand 
feet  deep.  The  rivers  have  so  grooved  the  face 
of  Colorado  in  some  sections  that  the  geologist 
tells  us  it  can  hardly  be  crossed  except  by  birds. 

Perhaps  this  thought  of  the  river  as  a  toiler 
was  the  most  consoling  and  soothing  one  to  my 
overstrained  nerves  as  I  lazily  brooded  over  its 
beauty  from  my  hammock.  It  was  a  comfort  to 
think  that  there  was  something  at  work  while 


THE    RIVER    OF    LIFE  129 

I  was  idle,  and  that  the  great  workers  do  not 
grow  weary.  Though  we  let  go  once  in  a  while, 
the  machinery  of  life  does  not  stop.  It  is  good 
to  touch  elbows  whenever  we  can  with  a  "  power 
not  ourselves,"  good  to  remember  that  when  we 
fall  out  the  column  does  not  halt,  that  our  "  I 
will "  and  "  I  will  not "  sound  small  and  often- 
times impudent  when  uttered  in  the  presence  of 
the  resistless  forces  that  bear  us  on  their  bosoms 
and  use  our  indolence  as  well  as  our  diligence 
"  to  make  glad  the  city  of  God." 

And  so  as  this  little  stream  runs  through  our 
thought,  more  and  more  does  it  suggest  the  sol- 
emn river  of  human  life  with  its  flux  in  the 
permanent  that  has  been  bearing  down  through 
the  ages,  carrying  in  its  bosom  the  emotions 
and  the  thoughts,  the  loves  and  experiences  of 
the  nations  through  which  it  has  passed.  This 
river  of  humanity  has  also  been  fed  from  un- 
seen sources.  It  has  drawn  its  substance  out 
of  the  rills  of  life,  animal  and  vegetable.  The 
cruder  forces  of  crystal  and  cell  have  met  the 
sublimer  elements  of  air  and  sky  to  augment 
this  ever  broadening,  ever  deepening  river,  which 
bears  onward,  like  the  river  of  my  rest,  to  join 
with  other  streams  more  potent,  and  to  glide 


130  JESS 

into  the  bosom  of  that  parental  ocean  of  life 
which  gave  the  being  it  now  gladly  accepts. 
This  human  stream  has  also  been  a  great  bur- 
den-bearer. Commerce,  art,  learning,  religion, 
are  not  the  achievements  of  any  one  man,  na- 
tion, or  age,  but  the  accumulated  solutions,  the 
aggregated  deposits,  of  all  lands  and  of  all  ages. 
The  brook-like  attraction  of  the  upper  stream 
disappears  lower  down  in  the  Wisconsin  River. 
The  mountain  stream  dances  and  sings,  it  rip- 
ples and  jumps,  it  plays  hide-and-go-seek  with 
the  sunlight,  and  when  it  can  accommodate  a 
fish,  it  speckles  his  shining  sides  with  red  and 
puts  the  blithe  heart  of  a  trout  inside ;  but  all 
this  is  lost  before  it  reaches  Tower  Hill.  Here 
it  is  staid  and  quiet,  and  still  farther  down  our 
river  joins  hands  with  the  Mississippi.  It  be- 
comes more  placid,  more  sluggish  if  you  will, 
but  the  latter  and  not  the  former  condition  is 
the  more  glorious.  If  there  seems  to  be  more 
poetry  in  a  trout-brook  than  in  the  Mississippi 
River  spanned  by  airy  bridges,  in  the  midst  of 
which  is  the  mighty  steel  bridge  at  St.  Louis, 
the  marvel  of  modern  engineering,  if  the  Mis- 
sissippi seems  to  us  burdened  and  soiled  by  the 
freightage  of  the  Ohio,  the  Illinois,  Missouri, 


THE   RIVER    OF    LIFE  131 

Wisconsin,  and  countless  smaller  streams,  it  is 
because  our  imagination  is  weak  and  cannot 
grasp  the  complexity  of  the  situation.  We  can 
enjoy  the  jingle  of  the  brook  ballad,  but  we  are 
not  yet  equal  to  the  Shakespearean  poetry  of  the 
great  river. 

It  is  just  so  with  the  river  of  life.  If  we 
think  the  brook-like  clearness  of  the  Judean 
life  twenty-five  hundred  years  ago,  or  even  the 
mountain  streams  of  Greek  glory,  more  inter- 
esting, more  elevating,  or  more  refined  and  re- 
fining than  the  burdened  life  of  Paris,  London, 
Boston,  or  —  dare  I  say  it  ?  —  Chicago,  it  is  be- 
cause we  have  not  imagination  enough  to  con- 
ceive of  these  broadened  streams  in  their  full 
relations,  because  we  have  not  penetration  enough 
to  see  what  they  hold  in  solution,  to  realize  that 
their  waters  have  come  from  the  uplands  of 
Judea,  that  these  modern  rivers  contain  the  out- 
put of  Grecian  springs  and  Persian  brooks  as 
well  as  Keltic  rivulets,  Skandivavian  tarns,  and 
Gothic  creeks.  "  Oh,  but,"  you  say,  "  the  water 
is  so  dirty ;  it  is  muddy  and  stench-laden  by 
this  time."  Do  you  know  how  the  Rhone 
plunges  into  Lake  Geneva  a  turbid,  troubled 
stream,  and  how  it  passes  out  of  the  lake  some 


i 32  JESS 

forty  miles  farther  on  with  its  waters  blue,  clear, 
and  beautiful  ?  Yet  the  same  water  enters  at 
the  upper  end  which  escapes  at  the  lower.  And 
what  of  the  mud  that  is  left  in  the  bottom  of 
the  lake  ?  Give  the  Rhone  time  enough,  it 
will  make  for  those  Swiss  people  splendid  farm- 
ing lands  where  now  the  waves  roll  high.  By 
its  deposits  valleys  have  been  formed  in  which 
great  oaks  have  rooted.  Wheat-fields,  orchards, 
and  flower-gardens  are  made  of  it.  It  contains 
the  best  kind  of  continent  stuff.  When  Al- 
pheus,  the  river  god,  pursued  Arethusa,  she 
sought  safety  in  a  fountain  of  pure  water.  But 
Alpheus,  nothing  daunted,  seized  the  fountain 
in  his  arms  and  bore  her  along  to  the  sea.  She 
was  none  the  less  pure,  but  the  god  was  the 
stronger.  There  is  a  great  lesson  which  the 
religious  and  thought  world  needs  to  learn  from 
this  airy  fable  of  the  Greeks,  thus  told  by 
Shelley :  — 

«'  Arethusa  arose 

From  her  couch  of  snows 

In  the  Acroceraunian  Mountains,  — 

From  cloud  and  from  crag, 

With  many  a  jag, 

Shepherding  her  bright  fountains, 


THE    RIVER   OF   LIFE  133 

She  leapt  down  the  rocks 

With  her  rainbow  locks 

Streaming  among  the  streams  ;  — 

Her  steps  paved  with  green 

The  downward  ravine 

Which  slopes  to  the  western  gleams  : 

And  gliding  and  springing, 

She  went  ever  singing, 

In  murmurs  as  soft  as  sleep  ; 

The  Earth  seemed  to  love  her, 

And  Heaven  smiled  above  her, 

As  she  lingered  towards  the  deep." 

"  As  she  lingered  towards  the  deep,"  says  the 
poet.  But  even  the  lingering  is  only  seeming. 
The  slackened  stream  moves  with  a  mightier  mo- 
mentum than  the  hurrying  brook,  it  carries  a 
heavier  burden,  it  is  more  beneficent.  The  Wis- 
consin River  which  washes  the  foot  of  Tower  Hill 
is  a  part  of  the  great  water  system  of  the  globe. 
There  is  but  one  ocean,  and  all  rivers  are  its 
feeders.  The  rivers  have  but  one  source,  and  that 
is  the  mother  sea.  Whether  it  be  as  invisible 
steam  in  the  cylinder,  floating  vapor  in  the  clouds, 
the  mist  overhanging  the  earth  as  morning  drap- 
ery, snow,  ice,  spring,  or  river,  water  is  the  same 
everywhere,  and  preserves  its  balance  of  relations. 

But  when  and  how  may  we  apply  this  lesson  to 


i34  JESS 

the  River  of  Life  ?  How  can  we  teach  man  to 
believe  that  all  religions  are  so  many  rivers  bear- 
ing toward  the  ocean  of  Truth ;  that  all  nations 
are  so  many  streams,  tributaries  to  that  splendid 
ocean  of  human  brotherhood  that  is  yet  to  be 
realized ;  and  that  in  the  last  analysis,  when,  by 
process  of  distillation  or  of  settling,  the  real 
essence  of  the  souls  of  men  is  discovered,  it  will 
be  found  that  all  have  emanated  from  the  one 
paternal  bosom  of  divine  being  ?  Oh,  when  shall 
we  see  man  in  his  relations  to  the  universe  of  life 
as  we  see  the  river  in  its  relation  to  the  universe 
of  matter  ?  When  we  have  learned  that  lesson, 
courage  will  come  so  that  we  shall  persist  in  our 
undertakings.  Then  tenderness  will  come,  and 
teach  us  to  be  patient  with  the  shortcomings  of 
one  another.  And,  last  and  best  of  all,  vision  will 
come  to  put  meaning  into  what  has  heretofore 
been  meaningless,  to  enable  us  to  see  harmony 
where  we  thought  discord  reigned,  and  we  shall 
walk  with  unsandalled  feet  ground  which  before  we 
rudely  crushed  with  the  hob-nails  of  irreverence 
and  the  profanity  we  visit  upon  the  commonplace. 
Oh,  that  we  might  realize  how  universal  are  the 
witnesses  to  the  universality  of  religion,  and  how 
near  and  ever  present  are  the  ministers  of  this 


THE    RIVER   OF   LIFE  135 

universal  religion  of  the  human  heart,  the  religion 
testified  to  by  nature  and  which  is  the  most  natural 
thing  in  nature. 

I  recall  a  revealing  hour  in  a  memorable  drive 
that  I  treasure  among  my  vacation  memories, 
which  are  not  all  confined  to  horse-back  experi- 
ences. The  twilight  found  us  driving  through 
one  of  those  open-mouthed,  rich-fielded  valleys 
in  which  Wisconsin  abounds,  a  valley  rimmed  but 
not  shut  in  by  that  bluffy  formation  which  attains 
the  outlines  but  not  the  altitudes  of  mountains. 
We  were  so  far  removed  in  space  and  time  from 
the  city  din  and  crowds  that  cities  seemed  to  be- 
long to  other  planets.  Even  the  railroad,  with  its 
villages,  telegraph  poles,  and  whistling  engines,  was 
hours  behind  and  as  far  beyond.  It  was  such  an 
evening  and  such  a  sunset  as  one  sees  but  few 
times  in  life  except  in  dreams.  The  western  sky 
had  changed  from  the  daring  saffron  of  an  August 
sunset  through  sweeping  darts  of  red  into  an 
opalescent  stillness  engirdling  the  brow  of  earth 
with  a  halo  such  as  the  older  artists  sought  in  vain 
to  throw  around  the  Christ  head,  seeking  thereby 
a  brilliancy  that  would  glorify  but  not  destroy  the 
modesty,  the  sorrow,  the  retirement  of  the  divine 
face.  It  was  an  evening  in  which  even  the  birds 


136  JESS 

modified  their  tones  and  the  insects  seemed  to 
stop  and  listen.  The  intermittent  clang  of  cow- 
bells in  the  home  nooks  of  the  farms  told  that 
feeding-time  was  over  and  that  milking-time  had 
come.  The  dull  hum  of  a  threshing-machine 
came  from  the  distance,  speaking  of  an  over-pro- 
longed day  to  tired  workers.  On  the  farther  hill, 
out  against  the  radiant  sky,  stood  as  if  self-poised 
in  air  the  fairy  disks  of  a  windmill,  like  a  dia- 
mond creating  more  light  in  itself.  But  its  vans 
were  quiet ;  even  the  windmill  stood  still.  Only 
an  occasional  woman's  call  or  child's  cry  broke 
the  stillness,  for  the  hum  of  the  machine  and  the 
irregular  tinkle  of  the  bells  seemed  a  part  of  the 
silence.  The  grating  of  our  wagon  wheels  was 
intrusive,  and  we  stopped  to  let  the  darkness  steal 
over  us  with  its  revealing  benedictions,  bringing 
as  it  did  the  stars  like  lanterns  in  its  hand. 

While  we  stopped,  a  church  bell,  the  Catholic 
angelus,  sent  its  tones  down  from  one  of  the 
mimic  mountain  tops  at  the  far  end  of  the  valley. 
It  was  one  of  those  rich,  noble  bells  which  the 
Catholic  church  knows  where  to  put  and  how  to 
use  in  far-off  country  nooks,  a  bell  that  empha- 
sizes the  quiet  of  quiet  places.  This  bell  pealed 
its  message  out  in  rhythmic  waves  over  fields, 


THE   RIVER   OF   LIFE  137 

down  the  road,  and  up  the  lanes  until  it  filled 
the  valley.  It  was  a  message  which  the  listener 
must  interpret  for  himself.  We  knew  too  much 
of  the  life  of  that  neighborhood,  we  had  studied 
too  closely  the  revealments  of  the  sunlight  to  be- 
lieve that  we  stood  in  any  ideal  valley,  such  as 
Rasselas  sought  or  poets  have  sung.  We  knew 
that  this  was  no  dream  Arcadia.  The  horizon- 
lines,  so  strongly  yet  delicately  moulded,  rimmed, 
as  we  knew,  homes  that  were  meagre  and  hearts  that 
were  barren.  Those  farm-houses  sheltered  sordid 
men,  unhappy  and  overworked  women.  There 
were  doubtless  poorly  tilled  fields  and  sadly 
neglected  minds  in  that  valley.  The  morrow 
would  bring  hard  tasks  to  reluctant  hands,  and 
would  hear  foul  phrases  and  angry  words  from 
human  lips  in  that  neighborhood,  but  over  all 
would  stand  in  the  to-morrow  as  in  that  twilight, 
the  cross-crowned  church.  And  three  times  the 
next  day,  and  every  day  in  the  year,  would  that 
bell  ring  out  its  call  to  prayer,  a  call  which  would 
oftentimes  fall  upon  ears  reluctant  and  stupid,  but 
it  would  still  be  a  summons  to  the  higher  life.  It 
would  speak  of  the  permanent,  of  the  right,  of  the 
immortal  hope,  of  the  blessed  dead,  of  God. 
I  do  not  forget  that  to  many  ears  in  the  valley 


138  JESS 

that  bell  is  only  the  Catholic  bell,  a  bell  of  super- 
stition, despised,  perhaps  dreaded ;  but  back  of 
all  that  is  doctrinal,  sectarian,  or  provincial,  it  is 
still  the  bell  of  religion,  the  voice  of  the  ideal, 
pleading  with  men  to  look  up,  to  look  ahead,  to 
look  around,  aye,  to  look  down  when  need  be, 
and  find  everywhere  the  revealing  God,  the  in- 
creasing sanctity  of  being,  and  the  besetting  glory 
of  life.  Hung  far  out  there  in  country  space,  it 
was  as  much  a  part  of  the  valley  as  the  scarred 
bluff  and  the  murmuring  brook.  That  bell 
belonged  there  that  night  as  much  as  the  opal- 
escent sky,  for  it  echoed  somehow  the  voice  that 
called  the  hills  into  being,  the  voice  that  will 
speak  when  the  brook  is  dry.  It  was  the  voice 
of  nature  vocalizing  itself  in  the  lives  and  dreams 
of  men.  It  was  the  voice  of  God  phrasing  itself 
in  the  aspirations  of  the  race.  It  was  the  spirit 
of  the  universe  climbing  through  atom  and  cell, 
up  through  flower  and  tree,  through  beast  and 
bird,  into  the  heart  of  woman  and  the  hand  of 
man,  embodying  itself  on  its  upward  way  in  its 
highest  attainment  yet  on  earth,  the  prophet's 
dream,  the  martyr's  faith.  The  crudest,  narrow- 
est sectarian  conventicle  to  be  found  in  Wiscon- 
sin fronts  toward  the  everlasting.  It  belongs  to 


THE    RIVER   OF   LIFE  139 

nature  and  to  nature's  God.  It  is  not  only  a 
part,  but  the  highest  part  of  the  landscape  in 
which  it  is  set. 

"For  out  of  Thought's  interior  sphere 
These  wonders  rose  to  upper  air  ; 
And  Nature  gladly  gave  them  place, 
Adopted  them  into  her  race, 
And  granted  them  an  equal  date 
With  Andes  and  with  Ararat." 

I  hope  this  parable  of  the  bell  has  not  led  us 
so  far  afield  that  we  cannot  return  to  the  parable 
of  the  river.  The  bell  does  not  conflict,  but 
reenforces  the  river  lesson.  May  I  not  bring 
the  analogies  of  the  river  still  nearer  home  ? 
Every  individual  life  is  a  river  rippling  and 
gleaming  like  the  trout-brook  of  childhood. 
The  stream  quiets  as  the  movement  broadens. 
In  middle  life  it  is  laden  with  accumulated  cares, 
burdened  with  other  people's  thoughts,  the  ex- 
periences and  responsibilities  of  the  world.  How 
turbid  are  its  waters  at  times,  how  unlike  the 
spring  purity  of  childhood,  how  unfit  for  the  se- 
renity and  placidity  of  the  ocean  toward  which  it 
is  tending.  And  still,  not  childhood  but  age  is  the 
more  noble.  Not  at  birth,  but  at  maturity,  are 
we  most  fit  for  companionship  with  angels.  Then 


140  JESS 

are  we  nearest  to  God.     Truly,  Lowell  is  justified 
by  the  analogies  of  the  river  when  he  says :  — 

"  Not  only  around  our  infancy 
Doth  heaven  with  all  its  splendors  lie; 
Daily,  with  souls  that  cringe  and  plot, 
We  Sinais  climb  and  know  it  not. 

c'~  Over  our  manhood  bend  the  skies  ; 
Against  our  fallen  and  traitor  lives 
The  great  winds  utter  prophecies  ; 
Its  arms  outstretched,  the  druid  wood 
Waits  with  its  benedicite, 
And  to  our  age's  drowsy  blood 
Still  shouts  the  inspiring  sea." 

I  apologize  for  none  of  the  lapses  of  life.  I 
excuse  no  complacency  and  recognize  no  grace  in 
coarseness  or  selfishness.  But  I  ask  for  respect 
for  every  living  thing  and  plead  for  the  sanctity 
of  life  in  its  essence,  wherever  or  however  found. 
The  sun  shines  above  you  and  its  rays  reach 
the  waters  of  your  life.  You  are  a  part  of  the 
wondrous  stream  of  being,  and  your  reflection 
and  shadow  enter  into  a  landscape  more  charm- 
ing than  any  combinations  of  river  and  valley, 
field  and  hillslope,  wild  wood  and  cultivated 
garden  can  produce. 

But  here  I  must  break  with  my  analogies 
and  free  myself  from  the  tyranny  of  the  fig- 


THE    RIVER    OF   LIFE  141 

ure.  Suggestive  and  inspiring  as  are  the  anal- 
ogies between  a  human  life  and  a  river,  still 
more  significant  are  the  differences.  Splendid 
as  is  the  view  of  the  Wisconsin  River  from 
the  porch  of  Westhope  cottage  with  its  hori- 
zon-line of  hills  miles  beyond  the  bridge,  which 
it  wears  as  a  woman  does  a  ring  of  silver  fret- 
work on  a  ringer  that  would  otherwise  be  all 
alabaster,  it  is  not  so  splendid  as  a  gleam  of  love 
on  a  woman's  face ;  it  is  not  so  inspiring  as  a 
ripple  of  laughter  on  the  manly  face  bronzed 
with  summer  toil.  No,  the  meanest  man  is 
more  than  the  noblest  river.  The  delta  of  the 
Nile  has  a  sea-line  of  one  hundred  and  eighty 
miles,  and  it  is  ninety  miles  from  its  shore  to  its 
apex,  while  that  of  the  Mississippi  contains  an 
area  of  forty  thousand  square  miles.  But  what 
are  these  deltas  compared  to  the  greater  accumula- 
tions, the  more  sublime  deposits  of  the  river  of 
human  life,  represented  by  a  volume  of  Emerson's 
poetry,  by  the  telephone,  or  by  a  library  of  a 
hundred  volumes  of  wisely  selected  books  ? 
The  Grand  Canon  of  Colorado  is  coarse  and 
cheap  work  accomplished  by  the  prentice  hand 
of  Nature,  compared  to  the  chiselled  beauty  of  a 
Mater  Dolorosa,  a  mother  of  grief. 


142  JESS 

As  I  sat  quietly  cultivating  the  acquaint- 
ance of  the  Wisconsin  River,  I  often  clothed 
it  with  personality,  and  added  to  all  its  other 
charms  the  superlative  gift  of  consciousness. 
I  imagined  it  endowed  with  a  memory  that 
reached  back  to  the  upland  brooks.  I  fan- 
cied it  poring  over  vague  recollections  of  a 
joyous  life  among  pebbles  and  merry  gambols 
over  stones,  but  all  oblivious  of  its  snow  birth 
or  the  rock  womb  from  which  it  sprang.  It 
might  well  remember  its  earlier  augmentations, 
the  cramped  life  at  the  Dells,  the  arbitrary 
interference  of  mill-dams  and  bridges,  and  now 
it  begins  to  feel  a  burden  of  anxiety  for  the 
future.  It  has  vague  premonitions  of  a  sea 
toward  which  it  is  tending,  where  from  excess 
of  glory  and  majesty  it  will  again  lose  itself. 

What  fancy  gave  to  the  river,  fact  gives  to 
man.  All  that  and  more  is  the  lot  of  the 
humblest  mortal,  and  therein  lies  the  crowning 
mission  of  religion,  —  to  give  to  man  some  real- 
izing sense  of  the  significance  and  responsibility 
of  this  self-consciousness ;  and  any  reasoning 
from  analogy,  from  man  to  river  and  from  river 
back  to  man,  that  forgets  this  mighty  difference 
is  delusive  and  treacherous.  Herein  dawns  my 


THE    RIVER   OF   LIFE  143 

hope  of  immortality.  This  existence  with  a 
memory  is  to  me  a  pledge  of  existence  with  a 
future  consciousness.  I  am  not  dismayed  by 
the  immortality  that  is  vouchsafed  to  the  river. 
Glad  and  grateful  will  I  be  for  the  life  that  now 
is,  which,  river-like,  is  permitted  to  flow  through 
glades  of  green,  past  rocks  of  strength,  a  life 
that  is  allowed  to  shelter  joyous  creatures,  to 
reflect  splendid  scenery,  to  give  back  the  colors 
of  the  sun,  to  water  parched  fields,  and  then, 
when  its  course  is  run,  to  find  a  home  in  the 
bosom  of  him  who  gave  it  being,  to  vanish,  not 
into  nothingness,  but  into  reality,  to  be  con- 
served in  ways  I  wot  not  of  for  the  perpetual 
uses  of  the  God  of  life.  I  do  not  recoil  from 
this  kind  of  immortality  ;  I  will  not  rebel  against 
it.  Life  is  still  a  gift,  a  magnificent  privi- 
lege. The  life  that  ends  in  absorption  and 
climbs  to  redistribution  is  insured  to  the  river ; 
and  if  I  may  fulfil  the  mission  of  a  river,  how- 
ever humble,  I  will  be  content. 

But  I  am  more  than  a  river.  The  forces  of 
the  soul  are  bound  together,  not  by  the  exter- 
nal law  of  gravitation,  but  by  an  inner  chord  of 
consciousness,  and  thus,  as  it  seems  to  me,  guar- 
antees a  continuity  transcending  all  the  rounds 


144  JESS 

of  matter.  Because  I  remember  I  rejoice  in 
individuality.  Being  a  river  with  a  memory, 
I  become  a  river  with  a  hope,  conscious  of  my 
own  limitations,  and  knowing  that  this  is  the 
sublimest  miracle  of  all  miracles,  the  highest 
surprise,  the  latest  achievement,  and  divinest 
unfolding  of  life.  I  find  myself  placed,  not  at 
the  last  end  of  a  declining  series,  but  at  the 
fore-end  of  an  ascending  one ;  and  so  the  river 
lifts  me  into  dreams,  expectations,  faiths,  that 
it  cannot  itself  attain.  Many  a  time  in  summers 
gone  by  have  I  in  my  wanderings  touched  my 
lips  to  rock-encradled  springs,  and  watched  the 
pure  water  start  from  its  ice-cold  caves  on  its 
long  journey  to  the  sea.  Can  we  not,  should 
we  not,  think  again  when  we  touch  our  lips  to 
love's  fountains,  and  see  an  impulse  of  kindli- 
ness shoot  from  the  privacy  of  a  hidden  desire 
out  of  the  caverns  of  hungry  eyes,  or  a  spring 
of  the  water  of  life  which  will  bear  its  way  on 
to  its  celestial  home,  to  its  deathless  destiny  ? 

Science  is  compelled  to  assume  the  existence 
of  an  atom,  which  no  one  has  seen,  an  inde- 
structible unit,  that  which  cannot  be  divided ; 
and  upon  this  assumption  it  works  out  its 
chemistry  of  nature.  Some  such  unit  of  meas- 


THE   RIVER    OF   LIFE  145 

ure  suggests  itself  to  me  in  a  self-centred  soul, 
a  directing  will,  a  conscious  river,  a  stream  with 
a  memory,  a  tide  of  life  with  a  hope. 

I  uncover  in  the  presence  of  the  man  of  sci- 
ence. I  ask  his  help  and  gratefully  take  his 
hand,  following  him  wherever  he  may  lead,  so 
long  as  he  is  true  to  his  mission.  But  the 
river  teaches  that  all  science  is  not  analytic. 
As  I  watched  that  living  picture  from  my  rest- 
place,  I  found  that  all  the  river  was  not  told  by 
the  surveyor,  the  geologist,  and  the  chemist, 
though  I  longed  to  know  all  these  might  tell 
me  of  it,  —  its  length,  breadth,  and  depth,  its 
component  parts,  and  the  nature  of  the  cargo 
it  was  carrying  to  the  sea ;  but  those  properties 
did  not  make  up  the  river.  I  must  seek  it  in 
its  settings  of  lights  and  shades.  My  picture 
was  framed  with  bluffs  three  hundred  feet  high, 
and  these  were  matted  with  rugs  woven  out  of 
tall  tree-tops.  My  river  was  bordered  with 
shadows,  emblazoned  with  sunrises,  haloed  with 
sunsets,  and  all  these  had  more  or  less  perfect 
communication  with  that  something  which  stood 
at  the  receiving  end  of  the  telescope  in  my  eye. 
There  was  something  that  was  in  telephonic 
communication  with  my  ear ;  and  these  tints, 


146  JESS 

tones,  and  tempers,  all  seen,  heard,  felt,  and 
thought,  were  also  facts  of  nature,  realities  of 
being,  objects  of  scientific  thought,  and  he  who 
would  slight  any  one  of  them,  particularly  the 
more  evanescent  facts  of  thought  and  feeling, 
is  grossly  unscientific,  though  he  may  do  it  all 
in  the  name  of  science.  So  of  this  river  of 
human  life,  this  stream  of  consciousness  we  call 
soul.  We  must  take  it  in  its  settings,  study  it  in 
its  glow  as  well  as  in  its  gloom.  This  hope,  this 
hunger,  this  audacious  faith,  this  majestic  trust,  this 
heroic  defiance  even  of  death  itself,  is  a  fact,  a 
real,  solid,  splendid  fact  in  the  universe,  before 
which  true  science  is  at  least  as  respectful  as  it  is  in 
the  presence  of  sand  drifts  and  alluvial  deposits. 

So  it  is  that  I  let  one  river  interpret  for  me  the 
other,  but  will  not  let  the  lesser  fix  the  bounds  or 
establish  the  conditions  of  the  larger. 

Are  these  hopes  too  high,  these  reasonings  too 
subtle  for  everyday  use  ?  Let  us  then,  like  Abt 
Vogler  in  Browning's  poem,  get  our  feet  on  the 
earth  again,  and  seek  "  the  C  major  of  common 
life."  Let  us  think  of  the  solemn  river  of  life  in 
its  ceaseless  flux  as  that  which  comes  from  a  source 
mystic  and  bears  to  a  destiny  mysterious,  but 
which,  between  the  two  horizon-lines  of  hallowed 


THE   RIVER   OF   LIFE  147 

ignorance,  does  expose  to  our  view  a  delightful 
mid-stream  section.  The  little  portion  of  the 
now  and  here  that  comes  within  our  study  and 
experience  is  still  enough  to  prove  that  it  is  re- 
lated to  all  that  is  fair  and  real,  that  it  flows 
toward  a  destiny  which  it  holds  in  common  with 
the  Lord  of  the  universe,  that  it  works  persist- 
ently, silently,  as  a  stream  "  that  would  make  glad 
the  city  of  God."  The  river  of  my  vacation  remains 
bordered  with  its  woodlands  and  its  meadows  under 
the  brows  of  moulded  hills,  but  the  River  of  Life 
which  it  quickened  is  not  confined  to  lines  of  space 
and  not  conditioned  by  Wisconsin  landscapes. 

May  the  River  of  our  Life,  quickened,  clari- 
fied, sanctified  by  contact  with  its  humbler  sis- 
ter river  among  the  hills,  flow  through  sluggish 
brains  and  quicken  in  them  thought  growths, 
reach  sand-parched  hearts  and  convert  them  into 
flower-gardens,  touch  the  roots  of  paralyzed  wills 
and  nerve  them  with  a  strength  to  battle  like  the 
pine  on  the  rocks,  to  defy  winter  storms  and 
summer  droughts,  to  persist  in  perennial  greenness, 
bearing  the  fruit  of  generosity,  open-handed  help- 
fulness, and  earnest  work  !  Thus  will  the  tree  of 
our  life  be  watered  by  the  stream  that  "  makes 
glad  the  city  of  God." 


EARTH'S    FULNESS 


Afoot  and  light-hearted  I  take  to  the  open  road, 

Healthy,  free,  the  world  before  me, 

The  long  brown  path  before  me  leading  wherever  I  choose. 

Henceforth  I  ask  not  good-fortune,  I  myself  am  good-fortune, 
Henceforth    I    whimper    no   more,    postpone    no    more,    need 

nothing, 

Done  with  indoor  complaints,  libraries,  querulous  criticisms, 
Strong  and  content  I  travel  the  open  road. 

The  earth,  that  is  sufficient, 

I  do  not  want  the  constellations  any  nearer, 

I  know  they  are  very  well  where  they  are, 

I  know  they  suffice  for  those  who  belong  to  them. 

Still  here  I  carry  my  old  delicious  burdens, 

I  carry  them,  men  and  women,  I  carry  them  with  me  wherever 

I  go, 

I  swear  it  is  impossible  for  me  to  get  rid  of  them, 
I  am  fill'd  with  them,  and  I  will  fill  them  in  return. 

WALT  WHITMAN. 

150 


EARTH'S    FULNESS 

The  earth  is  the  Lord's  and  the  fulness  thereof,  the  world 
and  they  that  dwell  therein.  —  PSALM  xxiv.  i . 

THERE  is  a  wholesome  and  robust  piety  in 
this  text  that  shames  the  mincing,  halting  in- 
decision of  the  cautious  who  try  to  pick  their 
way  through  what  is  to  them  a  profane  and 
secular  world.  The  earlier  geologists  thought 
of  the  earth  as  consisting  of  a  thin  crust  encir- 
cling a  burning  core.  The  later  geologists  are 
coming  to  think  of  it  as  essentially  solid,  —  not 
a  shell  filled  with  fluid  matter,  but  rigid  to  the 
centre.  Something  like  this  change  is  going  on 
in  the  theological  estimate  of  the  world.  The 
elder  theologies  formed  scarcely  sanctities  enough 
to  make  a  shell.  They  discovered  here  and 
there  a  divine  touch,  a  holy  spot,  an  occasional 
sacred  day ;  but  they  thought  of  all  the  rest  of 
life  as  some  kind  of  devil-stufF,  to  come  into 
contact  with  which  was  to  expose  oneself  to 
blight.  Opposed  to  this  is  the  faith  of  the 


152 

psalmist,  which  is  being  reemphasized  in  these 
days  by  science.  He  taught  that  the  earth  is 
the  Lord's  all  the  way  through,  and  that  it 
teems  everywhere  with  a  divine  fulness.  The 
old  sanctities  stand,  but  new  sanctities  are  added 
thereto.  The  holy  land  is  not  alone  on  the 
eastern  shores  of  the  Mediterranean ;  the  holy 
word  is  not  confined  to  Hebrew  and  Greek 
text ;  and  he  who  died  on  Calvary  is  not  the 
only  son  of  the  eternal  Father.  He  who  would 
study  the  mystic  depths  of  law,  order,  beauty, 
and  utility  need  not  now  confine  himself  to 
archaeological  subjects.  He  has  but  to  put  his 
ear  close  to  the  breast  of  earth  anywhere  and 
he  hears  the  rhythmic  pulsing  of  her  great 
heart.  He  need  but  stand  uncovered  anywhere 
and  cast  his  eyes  upward  to  find  himself  over- 
arched by  Infinity.  The  squadrons  of  the  sky 
sail  the  upper  seas  over  every  land,  and  the 
horizon-line  is  the  best  thing  in  every  landscape. 
In  search  of  rest,  adventure,  and  health,  my 
vacation  tramp  this  time  carried  me,  in  the  com- 
pany of  a  friend,  into  the  pinery  depths  of 
northern  Wisconsin.  Together  we  walked  more 
than  two  hundred  miles,  consorting  with  wood- 
men, lodging  with  half-breeds,  interviewing  Ind- 


EARTH'S   FULNESS  153 

ians,  feeding  on  wild  berries,  and  fighting 
mosquitoes.  And  we  found  something  more 
valuable  than  health,  —  a  restoration  of  courage, 
a  renewal  of  the  spirit.  We  found  verification 
of  the  stalwart  faith  of  the  psalmist  that  "  the 
earth  is  the  Lord's  and  the  fulness  thereof,  the 
world  and  they  that  dwell  therein."  I  may  not 
yet  preach  the  sermon  of  this  vacation  tramp, 
and  so  I  apply  myself  to  the  humbler  task  of 
recounting  a  few  of  the  many  illustrations  of 
my  text  which  we  found  by  the  way.  I  shall 
be  content  if  I  can  provide  the  raw  material 
out  of  which  you  may  construct  your  own  ser- 
mon. Take  it  and  weave  it  into  a  fabric  of 
your  own. 

Emerson  says :  "  The  best  part  of  a  boy's 
schooling  is  that  which  he  gets  on  his  way  to 
and  from  school,"  and  the  best  part  of  our 
visit  to  Duluth  was  the  two-hundred-mile  walk 
through  the  wilderness.  We  arrived  at  Duluth 
sadly  frayed  out  at  the  edges,  so  much  be- 
draggled that  our  friends  would  have  been  loath 
to  acknowledge  us.  The  hotel  clerk  eyed  us 
suspiciously,  and  granted  us  accommodations  re- 
luctantly. But  little  recked  we.  We  had  walked 
through  naves,  aisles,  and  choirs  of  cathedrals 


154  JESS 

greater  than  those  of  Cologne  or  York.  We 
had  found  beauties  of  nature  at  points  not  down 
in  the  guide-books,  to  which  no  "  tourists' 
tickets "  were  obtainable.  We  had  had  lovely 
glimpses  of  human  nature,  revelations  of  human 
passion  and  sympathy  in  lives  unclaimed  by 
priest  and  outside  of  all  church  statistics.  We 
had  been  hunting  without  a  gun  and  fishing 
without  a  rod,  and  our  game-bags  were  loaded. 
Alas  for  him  who  goes  seeking  his  game ;  the 
true  hunter  tarries  where  he  is  and  his  game 
comes  to  him.  The  most  foolish  of  all  game- 
seekers  are  the  social  lion  hunters,  —  those  who 
go  in  quest  of  interesting  people,  —  for  such 
game  is  everywhere.  The  lines  of  poetry  and 
pathos  run  parallel  with  those  of  evolution. 
The  dullest  of  birds  is  more  cunning  than  the 
wisest  of  fishes,  and  the  most  primitive  of  fishes 
is  a  greater  marvel  than  the  most  elaborated 
crystal ;  yet  the  powdered  quartz  we  call  sand 
is  star-stuff.  What  reaches  of  divine  fulness 
are  found  between  the  grain  of  sand  and  the 
man  whom  we  call  stupid  !  The  greatest  stu- 
pidity is  that  which  finds  anything  stupid  in 
the  world.  The  soul  is  irreligious  that  finds  the 
story  of  any  hearth-stone  pointless,  any  mother 


EARTH'S    FULNESS  155 

uninteresting,  any  babe  unattractive.  Let  the 
man  be  ever  so  ignorant  and  marred  howsoever 
by  vice,  the  culture  that  recoils  from  him  is  a 
veneer,  and  the  piety  that  dismisses  him  with 
an  epigram  is  a  varnished  delusion.  The  first 
business  of  culture,  as  of  religion,  is  to  liberate 
the  soul  from  the  social  tyranny,  the  blindness 
of  the  aristocrat,  the  elegant  conceits  and  polite 
imbecilities  which  sometimes  mask  under  the 
name  of  good  society. 

Hanging  over  the  railing  of  a  rustic  bridge  that 
spanned  a  forest  river,  we  came  one  day  upon  a 
fisherman  to  whom  the  adjectives  "  worthless " 
and  "  aimless  "  would  seem  to  fit  if  they  ever  be- 
longed to  a  human  being.  In  the  winter  season 
he  cooked  in  the  pinery,  but  summer-time  he 
mostly  fished,  he  told  us.  We  were  anxious  for 
dinner.  "  If  you  are  willin'  to  go  out  of  your  way 
'bout  half  a  mile  I  think  wife  can  give  you  some 
bread  and  milk  over  at  the  shanty."  Almost  any 
way  in  these  woods  was  our  way,  particularly  if  it 
led  to  bread  and  milk,  and  we  accepted  the  invi- 
tation. Suddenly  we  emerged  out  of  the  dense 
shades  into  a  little  garden-patch  of  a  clearing, 
flecked  with  sunlight,  with  a  newly  built  little 
shanty  in  the  midst  of  it.  A  smiling,  dainty 


156  JESS 

young  wife  at  the  doorway  bade  us  welcome,  and 
the  sweetest  little  babe  in  its  white  gown  with  its 
edgings  and  insertions  slept  sweetly  in  the  cradle. 
Far  away  from  neighbors  and  what  seemed  all 
privileges  we  were  suddenly  ushered  into  the 
presence  of  fireside  sanctities.  While  we  ate  the 
lightest  of  bread  and  drank  the  sweetest  of  milk 
the  father  revelled  in  the  delights  of  fatherhood  as 
he  frolicked  with  his  babe,  and  the  gentle  little  wife 
confided  to  us  her  domestic  pride  over  the  fact 
that  they  had  at  last  settled  down  and  had  a  home 
of  their  own  which,  if  they  prospered,  they  hoped 
to  "  make  a  pretty  spot  some  day."  We  went 
away  saying,  There  is  more  to  our  fisherman  than 
we  thought.  Even  his  fishing  is  justified  in  the 
love  of  the  pretty  wife  and  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
bouncing  babe.  They  too  are  items  in  the  ful- 
ness of  the  earth. 

Two  days  later  the  deep  silence  of  the  woods, 
unbroken  by  man  for  several  hours,  was  intensi- 
fied by  the  sound  of  children's  voices,  hid  away 
deep  in  the  jungle.  We  pushed  toward  the  sound 
through  tangled  undergrowth  and  matted  briers 
until,  hot  and  torn,  we  suddenly  came  upon  an 
Indian  bivouac,  a  camp  of  half-tamed  Chippewas 
out  gathering  ginseng  root  for  the  white  man's 


EARTH'S    FULNESS  157 

market.  Most  of  the  party  were  at  their  gather- 
ing. Only  two  or  three  mother  squaws  were  left 
to  watch  a  dozen  or  more  children  who  were 
rolling  on  beds  of  fern.  One  of  the  women, 
having  caught  the  knack  of  her  more  civilized 
white  sister,  was  making  over  an  old  skirt  into  a 
child's  garment.  One  was  cooking  the  supper  in 
a  gypsy  kettle  over  a  pine-knot  fire,  and  another 
was  smoking,  with  a  little  diamond-eyed  baby 
tumbling  about  her  like  a  playful  kitten,  while 
she  crooned  over  him  as  gently  as  if  she  were 
dressed  in  softest  silks  and  her  slippered  feet 
rested  on  richest  carpet.  To  us  she  was  stolid 
and  silent  until  my  friend  offered  his  watch  in  ex- 
change for  her  babe,  when  the  fire  flashed  in  her 
eyes.  She  convulsively  clasped  her  babe,  and, 
with  the  dignity  of  a  queen,  waved  our  insolence 
out  of  the  camp.  "  We  have  learned  at  least," 
said  my  friend,  "  that  baby  talk  is  the  same  in 
Chippewa  as  in  English,  and  that  mother-love  is 
older  and  more  fundamental  than  pen,  ink,  and  the 
spelling-school."  The  fulness  of  the  earth  was 
again  illustrated. 

Several  days  farther  on,  a  man  fresh  from  the 
"  dump,"  encased  in  the  dust  and  dirt  that  comes 
to  one  shovelling  on  the  railroad,  his  clothes  so 


158  JESS 

ragged  that  he  was  picturesque,  politely  accosted 
us  and  begged  for  advice.  He  was  from  Canada, 
and  was  soon  to  start  out  in  search  of  a  govern- 
ment homestead  in  the  United  States.  Would 
we  advise  as  to  the  best  place  to  seek  it  ?  Said 
he,  "  I  have  six  children  who  are  still  in  the  prim- 
itive innocence  of  childhood,  and  I  want  to  go 
where  I  can  keep  them  thus,  where  we  may  ex- 
pect good  schools  and  the  influence  of  church  and 
Sunday-school  in  due  time,  for,  sirs,  I  believe  in 
such  influences,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  so 
many  of  the  preachers  are  behind  the  times  and 
are  trying  to  evade  and  deny  instead  of  forcing 
the  conclusions  of  science,  which  are  but  man's 
discovery  of  God's  own  truth."  This  and  much 
more,  expressed  in  fluent  English,  came  from  this 
knight  of  the  shovel,  who  finally  capped  our  sur- 
prise by  throwing  at  my  learned  friend  with  great- 
est ease  the  first  verses  of  St.  John's  Gospel  in  the 
original  Greek.  He  said  his  education  had  been 
such  as  befitted  a  gentleman.  His  mother  had 
owned  an  oat-mill  in  Ireland,  but  she  was  a  woman 
who  could  never  say  "  no  "  when  there  was  suf- 
fering, and  when  the  famine  came  she  gave  so 
much  away  that  her  property  became  involved, 
and  she  lost  it  all.  We  encouraged  this  man  to 


EARTH'S   FULNESS  159 

travel  toward  Dakota,  whither  his  heart  was 
already  yearning.  The  new  home,  when  founded, 
he  said,  was  to  be  called  "  Shane  Castle,"  after  the 
old  place  in  Ireland,  now  owned  by  Lord  Some- 
body of  England.  As  we  left  him  my  companion 
wondered  if  there  was  a  minister  within  two  hun- 
dred miles  of  us  who  could  have  quoted  his  New 
Testament  Greek  as  accurately  as  did  this  schol- 
arly laborer,  in  whose  life  Greek  and  wheel- 
barrows were  blended.  We  had  found  another 
witness  that  "  the  earth  is  the  Lord's,"  another 
item  in  "  the  fulness  thereof,"  another  illustration 
for  the  sermon  which  still  remains  unwritten. 

"  How  do  you  like  to  live  up  here  ? "  I 
asked  of  a  pale,  over-worked,  sad-eyed  pio- 
neer's wife  in  her  log  house  hid  away  in  the 
forest  depths. 

"A  little  better  now,  sir,  since  we  have  had 
school  for  the  children.  I  was  very  unhappy 
until  that  was  accomplished." 

"  How  far  away  is  the  school  ?  " 

"  Two  miles,  through  the  woods  all  the  way." 

"  How  many  children  in  the  district  ?  " 

"  Twelve." 

"  How  large  is  the  district  ?  " 

"  Six  miles  square." 


160  JESS 

"  How  many  of  these  children  can  reach  the 
school  ?  " 

"  There  are  seven  in  the  school  this  summer, 
sir ;  my  three,  a  neighbor's  boy,  and  three  half- 
breeds." 

A  mile  or  so  farther  on  we  met  the  teacher,  a 
slip  of  a  girl,  apparently  not  more  than  fourteen 
years  of  age.  She  seemed  a  frail  trellis  for  the 
climbing  vine  of  a  child's  mind  to  fasten  upon 
and  lift  itself  thereby  toward  the  sunlight  of 
knowledge.  But  weary  mother,  boisterous  chil- 
dren, and  simple  little  school-teacher  were  all 
further  items  in  the  wealth  of  the  world,  further 
witnesses  that  "  the  earth  is  the  Lord's,"  and 
telling  illustrations  for  the  sermon,  when  the 
preacher  comes  with  insight  sufficient  to  apply 
the  illustrations  and  adequately  enforce  my  text. 

One  night  we  lodged  at  what  was  once  an  old 
logging  camp.  Our  host  was  a  Frenchman,  our 
hostess,  his  wife,  an  Indian  woman.  It  was  a 
night  of  dramatic  unrest.  The  "  accommoda- 
tions "  represented  the  climax  of  our  physical 
discomfort  during  the  trip.  But  while  we  were 
waiting  for  a  breakfast  to  which  we  did  justice  by 
utterly  neglecting  it,  a  young  Indian,  our  host's 
brother-in-law,  undertook  to  set  me  right  in 


EARTH'S    FULNESS  161 

politics.  I  found  him  better  informed  than  I 
was  in  some  directions.  He  probably  had  the 
better  of  the  argument.  He  had  attended  the 
reservation  school.  He  knew  he  had  "  not  had 
much  chance,"  but  he  "  tried  to  keep  posted." 
He  read  a  paper  whenever  he  could  find  one,  and 
he  always  voted,  though  the  polling  place  was 
thirty  miles  away. 

Basil  Dennis,  the  half-breed  boatman  who 
rowed  us  up  the  St.  Louis  River,  could  readily 
talk  three  languages,  Chippewa,  English,  and 
French,  and  could  read  the  first  two.  He  was  a 
sincere  and  devout  Catholic,  and  he  could  build  a 
fire  out  of  wet  wood  in  the  rain  and  do  many 
other  things  that  neither  of  us  could  do  at  all. 
Here  is  material  enough  for  a  sermon.  Let  him 
who  is  equal  to  it  write  it. 

"  Well,  does  such  a  trip  leave  you  with  better 
or  worse  opinion  of  your  kind  ? "  asked  my  city 
neighbor  upon  my  return.  "  Better,"  I  replied, 
"increasingly  better."  My  faith  in  men  and  my 
hope  for  a  better  religion  and  a  nobler  culture 
found  great  encouragement  in  the  woods,  greater 
perhaps  than  if  I  had  sought  it  in  the  company 
of  those  who  grow  weary  in  carrying  an  unappro- 
priated pack  of  blessings,  who  are  denied  the 


162  JESS 

uplifting  power  of  meagre  surroundings  and  the 
inspiration  of  hard  circumstances,  who  are  bereft 
of  the  ministrations  of  the  "angels  with  ugly 
faces "  that  Emerson  talks  about.  Pessimism 
and  cynicism  grow  more  luxuriantly  upon  the 
city  avenues  than  in  the  Indian  reservations  or 
in  the  homes  of  pioneers.  These  diseases  fasten 
themselves  readily  upon  those  whose  nerves  are 
not  toughened  by  want  and  whose  hearts  are  not 
sub-soiled  by  sacrifice.  There  is  more  hope  for 
the  half-formed,  unendowed  people  in  the  clear- 
ing than  for  those  who  are  made  imbecile  by  too 
many  luxuries.  Downy  couches,  attractive  book- 
shelves, and  sumptuous  boards  give  rise  to  plaints 
and  groans  never  heard  among  children  who  are 
nursed  in  hardships  and  toughened  by  struggle. 
Let  the  men  and  women  who  find  themselves 
growing  mean  in  their  wealth  and  stingy  in  their 
superfluities  take  to  the  woods  long  enough  to 
find  a  sermon  to  their  needs.  Let  them  remem- 
ber that  it  is  wholesome  once  in  a  while  to  reduce 
life  to  its  lowest  terms,  to  throw  away  as  many  of 
the  conventionalities  and  externalities  as  possible, 
to  bring  one's  condition  down  to  a  woollen-shirt 
and  bread-and-milk  basis  in  order  to  find  how 
much  there  is  left.  If  there  are  yet  remaining 


EARTH'S   FULNESS  163 

tenderness,  hopefulness,  thoughtfulness,  mother 
heart  and  father  strength,  and  a  willingness  and 
ability  to  work,  then  surely  God,  Jesus,  Bible, 
and  church  are  left  resting,  not  upon  elegant  or 
questionable  accessories,  but  upon  the  permanent 
realities  of  life. 

In  the  national  gallery  in  London  I  once  saw 
a  little  Dutch  painting  of  the  holy  family,  by  one 
of  the  Van  der  Weydens.  It  showed  the  holy 
mother  with  the  plainest  of  Flemish  faces.  The 
picture  was  flat  and  hard.  The  mother  face  had 
in  it  the  minimum  of  what  is  generally  called 
"  the  ideal,"  but  her  eyes  were  red  with  weeping 
and  the  homely  features  were  furrowed  with  pain 
and  wrinkled  with  grief,  and  this  little  picture 
brought  the  tears  that  Raphael's,  in  the  adjoin- 
ing room,  had  failed  to  bring.  Were  I  a  painter, 
I  would  love  to  paint  a  madonna  and  child  with 
the  Indian  squaw  and  her  pappoose  as  models. 
I  would  leave  out  the  nimbus,  and  the  Christ 
child  should  have  no  halo  about  its  head,  but 
I  would  put  in  the  strong  lines  of  maternal 
anxiety,  the  intensity  of  the  wild  mother's  love 
for  the  unspeakable  gift  of  a  child,  and  the  help- 
less babe's  dumb  dependency  upon  a  mother's 
hand  and  a  mother's  breast,  though  they  were 


1 64  JESS 

those  of  an  Indian  squaw.  And  I  would  add 
thereto  the  upward  push,  the  outward  reach  of 
the  creative  forces  of  human  kind  that  are  mani- 
fest in  the  divine  daring  of  a  baby,  even  of  an 
Indian  baby,  for,  however  conservative  he  may 
become  later  along,  the  Indian  baby  is  a  radical, 
and  radicalism  is  the  pledge  of  progress.  If  I 
failed  to  put  a  revelation  of  the  divine  into  this 
picture  the  fault  would  be  mine,  not  the  sub- 
ject's, for  God  was  revealing  himself  when  he 
taught  the  Indian  babe  to  nestle,  and  the  Indian 
mother  to  croon. 

"  Mamma,  there  is  a  beautiful  vine  growing 
down  by  the  creek,  all  covered  with  flowers,  and 
it  winds  around  the  tree  as  prettily  as  if  it  was 
tame,"  said  the  little  boy.  Alas,  how  many 
make  the  mistake  of  this  child  and  credit  the 
grace  and  beauty  to  some  peculiar  training,  in- 
stead of  to  the  opulent  stock  of  the  race.  It 
is  the  nature  of  the  plant  itself,  the  twining 
tendrils  have  caught  no  trick  of  the  conserva- 
tory. The  output  and  uplift  of  all  nature  is  in 
the  spiral  pull  of  that  clinging  tendril.  The 
climbing  vine  testifies  to  the  divinity  of  earth 
and  the  fulness  thereof.  It  is  a  part  of  the 
mystery  of  the  wildwood.  So  is  it  with  human 


EARTH'S    FULNESS  165 

nature.  There  was  in  my  half-breed  who  read  a 
paper  when  he  had  the  chance  and  went  thirty 
miles  to  vote,  the  beginning  of  a  Charles  Sumner, 
whose  politics  was  shot  through  and  through  with 
conscience  and  converted  thereby  into  statesman- 
ship. 

On  the  borders  of  one  of  the  many  pine  lakes 
far  beyond  the  sound  of  the  railway  whistle,  we 
found  lodgment  one  night  with  an  energetic  Dane 
who  had  once  been  on  the  police  force  in  the 
city  of  Chicago,  but  had  been  driven  into  the 
woods  by  the  great  fire.  We  found  him  intelli- 
gent, hospitable,  manly,  but  he  had  carried  with 
him  from  Chicago  the  policeman's  habit  and  privi- 
lege of  profanity,  which,  in  the  solitudes  of  the 
woods,  had  grown  into  something  akin  to  art. 
So  unique,  fresh,  and  unceasing  was  the  pictu- 
resque flow  of  this  man's  oaths  that  we  had  no 
heart  to  check  them  by  suggesting  our  profession, 
but  next  morning,  when  the  truth  had  to  come 
out,  and  he  realized  that  he  had  been  entertain- 
ing a  pair  of  ministers,  his  countenance  fell,  and 
in  a  humble,  apologetic  tone  he  said,  "  Gentle- 
men, I  am  sorry  I  troubled  you  with  my  rough 
language,  for  I  can  speak  proper  words.  I  do 
not  allow  my  children  to  say  the  words  I  say, 


1 66  JESS 

but  you  know  how  it  is  up  here  in  the  woods, 
we  get  careless.  Perhaps  we  would  quit  if  more 
gentlemen  like  yourselves  came  up  to  see  us." 
During  the  remaining  two  hours  of  our  visit  not 
an  improper  accent  fell  from  his  lips  ;  but,  must  I 
confess  it  ?  there  came  somewhat  of  dulness  with 
the  increased  propriety.  His  questions  took  a 
thoughtful  turn.  We  found  that  he  was  not  so 
far  in  the  woods  but  that  the  besetting  problems 
of  the  day  had  reached  him.  Single-handed  and 
alone,  with  a  Lutheran  training  and  a  Catholic 
wife,  he  had  worked  out  for  himself  a  short- 
metre  kind  of  faith.  He  had  adjusted  for  him- 
self science  and  theology,  had  fitted  after  a 
fashion  the  Bible  into  his  life,  and,  spite  of  his 
lax  speech,  he  had  become  the  trusted  man  in 
the  settlement,  the  leader  of  the  little  community 
of  which  he  was  centre,  the  administrator  of  dead 
men's  estates,  and  the  arbitrator  of  live  men's 
quarrels.  That  man's  confession  and  the  two 
hours'  "  proper  language "  have  laid  a  burden 
upon  all  of  us,  and  we  are  forced  to  ask,  "Are 
there  not  many  such  waiting  a  touch  of  elbows 
with  gentle-men  and  gentle-ladies  to  make  gentle- 
men and  gentle-ladies  of  themselves  ?  " 

"  Weeds    are  plants   whose  uses    are   not   yet 


EARTH'S   FULNESS  167 

found  out,"  says  Emerson.  Too  large  a  realm 
in  the  human  as  in  the  botanical  world  is  rele- 
gated to  this  dominion  of  weeds.  There  are 
those  excused  from  our  attention  and  dismissed 
from  our  sympathy  through  our  ignorance  rather 
than  through  their  worthlessness.  Daily  we  over- 
look the  marvels  of  the  roadside  and  the  divine 
beauty  in  common  things  and  common  people. 

After  having  refreshed  ourselves  from  "  the 
old  oaken  bucket  that  hung  in  the  well,"  which 
we  found  adjoining  the  log  house  in  a  clear- 
ing, my  botanical  friend  with  his  glass  showed 
our  host  the  seeds  of  some  of  the  weeds  for 
which  the  farmer  had  just  apologized.  The 
mute  astonishment  of  the  farmer  broke  into  a 
refreshing  laugh.  He  clapped  his  hands  and 
shouted,  and  declared  it  was  the  most  wonder- 
ful thing  he  had  ever  seen  in  his  life.  Calling 
to  the  barefooted  boy  who  had  neglected  his 
stint  of  weeding,  he  exclaimed  :  "  Come,  Johnnie ! 
Come  here,  Johnnie,  and  see  what  the  gentle- 
man has.  A  mite  of  a  glass  that  makes  these 
specks  of  seeds  look  as  big  as  beans  and  as 
pretty  as  birds'  eggs.  Come,  lad ;  you  will 
never  forget  it."  While  the  lad  was  looking, 
he  continued :  "  I  would  not  have  believed  it, 


i68  JESS 

sir,  if  I  had  not  seen  it  with  my  own  eyes. 
What  a  powerful  glass  that  is !  What  a  deal 
of  money  it  must  have  cost !  Gentlemen,  that 
is  more  wonderful  than  any  show  I  have  ever 
been  at.  I  wish  you  could  stay,  that  the  other 
children  might  see  it."  The  glass  was  probably 
worth  a  dollar,  and  perhaps  it  magnified  fifteen 
or  twenty  diameters ;  but  even  so  simple  an 
instrument  opened  up  a  new  world  to  that  man 
and  flooded  his  soul  with  divine  ecstasy  because 
it  had  led  him  a  little  farther  out  on  the  lines 
of  God,  a  little  nearer  the  inscrutable  secrets  of 
nature.  It  gave  him  a  heavenly  lift,  and  evermore 
he  was  a  little  nearer  to  God.  Who  can  tell  to 
what  proportions  the  momentary  revelation  of  the 
single  lens  has  grown  in  that  backwoods  settle- 
ment by  this  time  ?  Surely,  the  road  of  knowl- 
edge is  a  path  that  leads  to  God,  and  the  telescope 
and  microscope  are  commentators  on  the  text. 

But  I  would  not  belie  the  woods  with  over- 
statement. The  forests  are  not  sentimental. 
They  impart  no  limp  optimism.  There  is  am- 
ple verification  of  Tennyson's  line  that  describes 
"  nature  red  in  tooth  and  claw."  It  does  not 
need  a  John  Stuart  Mill  to  see  in  the  woods 
the  fierce  forces  of  the  universe  crushing  life 


EARTH'S    FULNESS  169 

mercilessly  under  their  rolling  wheels.  There  is 
exemplified  the  fiendish  impulses  that  are  still 
rife  in  human  breasts,  the  selfish  lusts  that  are 
still  rampant  in  human  nature ;  and,  alas  !  these 
revelations  are  not  confined  to  the  woods.  The 
"big  Indian"  of  the  old  tales,  in  whose  belt 
hung  the  clustered  scalps  of  his  murdered  vic- 
tims, has  his  fellows  who  walk  our  streets  in 
civilized  garb  with  more  subtle  emblems  of 
their  triumphs.  They  do  business  on  our  Wall 
Streets,  they  ride  in  our  palace  cars,  they  live 
in  fine  houses  that  are  not  far  to  seek.  Not- 
withstanding the  men  who  have  grown  strong 
in  other  men's  defeats,  who  have  thriven  upon 
the  blood  of  others,  the  forest  teaches  me  to 
stand  by  the  stalwart  piety  of  my  text ;  and  I 
will  believe  that  "  the  earth  is  the  Lord's  and 
the  fulness  thereof,"  because  the  Lord  is  still 
a  be-coming  force  in  the  world,  his  creation  is 
not  yet  finished.  Nature  and  human  nature  are 
yet  very  incomplete,  but  enough  has  been  accom- 
plished in  both  fields,  enough  has  been  realized 
everywhere  to  justify  the  belief  that  the  movement 
is  ever  from  good  to  better,  that  crudities  do  fall 
out  by  the  way,  that  evil  is  shorter  lived  than 
virtue,  and  that  only  the  excellent  is  immortal. 


SPIRITUAL  VALUES  OF  COUNTRY 
AND    CITY 


For  I  have  learned 

To  look  on  nature,  not  as  in  the  hour 
Of  thoughtless  youth  ;  but  hearing  oftentimes 
The  still,  sad  music  of  humanity, 
Nor  harsh  nor  grating,  though  of  ample  power 
To  chasten  and  subdue.      And  I  have  felt 
A  presence  that  disturbs  me  with  the  joy 
Of  elevated  thoughts  ;  a  sense  sublime 
Of  something  far  more  deeply  interfused, 
Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns, 
And  the  round  ocean  and  the  living  air, 
And  the  blue  sky,  and  in  the  mind  of  man  ; 
A  motion  and  a  spirit,  that  impels 
All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought, 
And  rolls  through  all  things.      Therefore  am  I  still 
A  lover  of  the  meadows  and  the  woods, 
And  mountains  ;  and  of  all  that  we  behold 
From  this  green  earth  ;  of  all  the  mighty  world 
Of  eye,  and  ear,  —  both  what  they  half  create, 
And  what  perceive  ;  well  pleased  to  recognize 
In  nature  and  the  language  of  the  sense, 
The  anchor  of  my  purest  thoughts,  the  nurse, 
The  guide,  the  guardian  of  my  heart,  and  soul 
Of  all  my  moral  being. 

WILLIAM  WORDSWORTH. 


172 


SPIRITUAL  VALUES   OF  COUNTRY 
AND    CITY 

Speak  to  the  earth  and  it  shall  teach  thee.  — JOB  xii.  8. 

And  he  shewed  me  the  holy  city  Jerusalem,  coming  down 
out  of  heaven  from  God,  having  the  glory  of  God  :  her  light  was 
like  unto  a  stone  most  precious.  .  .  .  And  the  nations  shall 
walk  amidst  the  light  thereof.  — REVELATION  xxi.  10,  24. 

I  HAVE  been  taking  Job's  advice.  I  have  been 
listening  to  the  teachings  of  earth  from  my  sum- 
mer shelter  at  Westhope  cottage  on  Tower  Hill. 
From  that  sightly  ledge  upon  which  is  laid  my 
bed  that  serves  for  day  as  for  night,  I  have 
watched  the  solemn  flow  of  the  tireless  river,  I 
have  communed  with  creeping  and  flying  things. 
I  have  revelled  in  the  silences  of  breathless  even- 
ings, and  have  watched  undaunted  the  rise  of  the 
tempest  and  the  fury  of  the  storm. 

The  first  thing  the  earth  gave  to  me  was  rest. 
The  ceaseless  tug  of  circumstances,  the  unending 
din  of  the  city,  the  eternal  conflict  between  right 
and  wrong,  seemed  for  the  time  to  be  lifted  out 

173 


i 74  JESS 

of  reach,  and  there  came  relaxation  of  nerves, 
dreamless  sleep,  a  growing  appetite,  familiar  evi- 
dences of  health,  beatific  witnesses  to  physical 
restoration  and  prosperity.  These  bodily  bene- 
dictions have  their  spiritual  equivalents.  With 
the  soundness  of  the  flesh  comes  a  sanity  of  the 
mind;  for,  say  what  we  will,  robust  digestion 
makes  for  moral  courage,  and  a  good  circulation 
does  have  to  do  with  the  loving  life  and  fearless- 
ness in  the  face  of  death.  I  know  the  opposite 
truth,  and  love  to  dwell  upon  the  power  of  mind 
over  matter.  Let  the  mental  healer  seek  his 
strongest  statement  and  practice  his  most  skilful 
art,  and  I  will  gladly  recognize  the  truth  of  the 
one  and  the  legitimacy  of  the  other.  But  he  must 
not  be  disrespectful  to  my  bountiful  Mother 
Earth,  who  has  cradled  me  upon  her  brown 
bosom,  fanned  me  with  her  green  boughs.  She 
is  mother  of  my  thoughts  as  of  my  body.  She  is 
a  trusty  nurse,  who  ministers  to  spirit  through 
body,  makes  spirit  in  body,  reveals  spirit  by 
body.  The  country  is  the  home  of  the  spirit,  the 
cradle  of  the  emotions,  the  teacher  of  the  heart. 
Political  science  confidently  counts  upon  the 
stalwartness  of  the  yeoman  conscience.  In  every 
great  national  extremity  it  has  been  the  strong 


SPIRITUAL   VALUES  175 

right  arm  of  the  country  toiler,  the  slow  but  sure 
movement  of  the  country  conscience,  the  sturdy 
farmer  resource,  that  has  been  the  indispensable 
element  of  triumph.  In  England,  over  and 
over  again,  it  has  been  the  farmer  roundhead 
against  the  city  cavalier.  Peasant  France  has 
corrected  the  aberration  of  Parisian  nobles ;  the 
Continental  yeoman  brought  the  defeat  and  sur- 
render of  Cornwallis,  and  made  corporate  the 
philosophic  dream  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence. The  earth,  in  giving  sound  sleep, 
wholesome  fatigue,  vigorous  appetite,  gives  to 
conscience  an  edge  that  will  not  turn,  to  will  a 
vigor  that  will  not  surrender. 

But  the  earth  speaks  directly  to  mind.  It  is 
the  university  of  the  senses.  The  new  intelligence 
rests  not  upon  the  theories  of  the  masters,  nor  the 
statements  of  the  texts,  but  upon  the  facts  of 
nature.  Knowledge  is  not  a  matter  of  words,  but 
an  acquaintance  with  things.  The  appeal  is  not 
now  to  majorities  or  to  "revelation."  The  priest's 
dictum  does  not  persuade.  Questions  of  sociol- 
ogy, like  questions  of  theology,  are  so  large,  far- 
reaching,  and  intricate  that  he  is  wisest  who  most 
readily  confesses  his  incapacity.  Wisdom  lies  in 
mental  modesty.  The  profoundest  solution  of 


i 76  JESS 

such  problems  lies  in  giving  them  up.  The  best 
evidence  that  the  mind  has  little  right  to  speak 
and  that  the  opinions  are  worthy  of  little  consid- 
eration is  the  evidence  that  the  holder  is  sure  that 
he  knows  all  about  it.  There  are  many  great 
questions  which  only  the  fool  will  claim  the  mas- 
tery of.  But  in  the  country  the  mind  is  permitted 
to  study  the  simpler  lessons  of  God,  the  lore  of 
clover-fields  and  fern  beds,  the  poetry  of  grass 
and  flowers,  the  science  of  leaf  and  bird.  From 
my  berth  on  the  hillslope  I  could  study  the  dili- 
gence of  the  woodpecker,  the  enterprise  of  the 
squirrel,  and  the  growth  of  the  mosquito  in  his 
aquatic  stage,  for  the  wigglers  in  the  rain-barrel 
at  the  back  of  the  house  were  interesting  and 
harmless  objects  of  study. 

In  this  age,  when  words  are  being  subor- 
dinated to  things,  when  the  fairy  tales  of  old 
are  being  outdone  by  the  more  bewitching  tales 
of  science,  the  country  offers  increasing  inspira- 
tion to  the  mind.  The  delicate  investigations, 
skilful  experiments,  and  the  necessary  generali- 
zations from  country  facts  and  emergencies,  in- 
dicate the  processes  by  which  the  spiritual 
vision  of  the  coming  generations  may  be  clari- 
fied. By  these  methods  are  the  prophets  and 


SPIRITUAL   VALUES  177 

seers  of  the  future  to  be  trained.  The  hornet 
which  finds  for  his  mud  house  secure  lodgment 
on  the  rafters  of  some  of  the  Tower  Hill  cottages, 
the  wasp  in  his  city  pavilioned  in  papier-mache  of 
home  manufacture,  the  ants  in  their  ordered  colo- 
nies, the  mud-worms  in  the  pool,  the  swallows  in 
their  rocky  catacombs,  are  humble  phenomena,  but 
upon  the  study  of  these  and  such  as  these  rest  the 
foundations  upon  which  must  be  built  the  sound 
sense,  the  ordered  thought  of  the  future  concern- 
ing capital  and  labor,  the  state  and  the  individual. 
"  The  ink  of  science  is  more  precious  than 
the  blood  of  the  martyrs,"  is  a  radical  say- 
ing from  the  Arabic,  a  saying  to  be  verified 
by  the  history  of  the  future.  The  power  of 
observation  that  makes  one  equal  to  the  per- 
plexities of  the  forest  and  skilled  in  the  manipu- 
lation of  nature's  elements,  the  thrift  of  the 
pioneer,  the  sagacity  of  the  hunter,  are  spiritual 
acquirements.  The  frontier  settler  was  the  fore- 
runner of  Darwin,  and  Darwin  is  himself  a 
prophecy.  He  represents  a  fraternity  yet  to 
come,  a  brotherhood  of  men  who  through  science 
will  find  communion  with  the  potency  of  the 
universe,  the  eternal  power,  the  ever  present  and 
ever  living  God. 


178  JESS 

The  country  is  not  the  place  of  many  printed 
books,  but  the  infinite  variety  that  everywhere 
impinges  upon  sight  and  hearing,  the  ever  press- 
ing marvel  of  being,  the  bewitching  beauty  of 
river  and  wood,  the  symphonies  that  combine  the 
trill  of  the  tree-toad,  the  sighing  of  the  wind,  the 
bellowing  of  the  cow,  and  the  finer  notes  from 
the  silvery  throats  of  the  birds,  possess  direct 
mental  value,  they  are  themselves  creators  of 
intellect.  To  bring  oneself  into  an  appreciation 
of  these  simple  realities  of  nature  requires  a  finer 
mental  endowment  than  that  which  shaped  and 
preserved  the  fairy  folk-lore  of  antiquity.  The 
myths  of  the  world  are  its  child  science.  They 
indicate  the  way  in  which  untrained  intellects 
often  miss  the  reality.  Those  who  "  speak  to  the 
earth  "  are  taught  tales  more  marvellous  than  that 
of  Cinderella,  are  made  familiar  with  creatures 
more  airy  than  Puck  or  Ariel,  and  are  brought 
into  immediate  contact  with  powers  exceeding 
those  of  a  Hercules  or  a  Samson,  greater  than  the 
might  of  the  Titans.  Indolent  indeed  is  the 
mind  that  finds  not  something  of  this  intellectual 
quickening  in  the  country  to-day.  Alas  for  him 
who  returns  from  his  vacation  to  his  city  work 
untutored  by  these  country  forces,  with  no  con- 


SPIRITUAL   VALUES  179 

scious  sense  of  mental  growth  and  intellectual 
enlargement. 

The  Indian,  it  is  said,  puts  his  ear  to  the 
ground  and,  listening  intently,  detects  the  ap- 
proaching tramp  of  the  foe  or  feels  the  tread 
of  the  buffalo  herd  which  he  is  seeking.  He 
who  puts  his  ear  close  to  the  bosom  of  Mother 
Earth  and  listens  to  the  simple  runes  of  the 
insects,  or  studies  the  circulation  in  the  fern 
frond,  will  in  due  time  hear  the  approaching 
tramp  of  the  human  army  that  makes  for  civili- 
zation and  peace.  The  fine  sense  there  de- 
veloped will  help  solve  the  perplexities  of  the 
state.  It  will  purge  the  altar  of  its  superstition 
and  rear  the  temple  of  reason,  which  will  also 
be  the  temple  of  trust.  The  good  saint  of  the 
Catholic  Church,  Thomas  a  Kempis,  anticipated 
me  and  put  all  this  in  happier  phrase  when  he 
said :  "  If  indeed  thy  heart  were  right,  then 
would  every  creature  be  to  thee  a  mirror  of  life 
and  a  book  of  holy  doctrine." 

This  suggests  another  great  contribution  which 
the  country  gives  to  the  spirit.  Nature  is  a 
school  of  faith.  It  restores  the  trust  which  is 
ever  being  broken  by  the  clash  of  selfish  in- 
terests, the  clamor  of  wordy  creeds,  the  rivalry 


i8o  JESS 

of  sect.  However  banks  break,  nature  is  al- 
ways solvent.  Building  and  Loan  Associations 
too  often  prove  a  delusion  and  a  snare  to  the 
toiler  on  account  of  the  most  dastardly  treachery 
of  which  the  modern  man  is  guilty,  the  specu- 
lating treachery  of  so-called  "  trusted  officials," 
the  men  who,  in  the  hope  of  private  gain,  dare 
risk  another's  property.  But  the  forests  con- 
tinue to  grow,  the  oak  adds  its  annual  ring  of 
fibre,  and  though  the  farmer  has  his  dire  anx- 
ieties caused  by  drought  and  flood,  scorching 
heat,  and  untimely  frost,  yet  deep  in  the  heart 
of  nature,  long  before  it  found  a  place  on  He- 
brew scroll,  was  written  the  text,  "  Seed  time 
and  harvest  shall  not  fail."  The  seasons  keep 
their  ceaseless  rounds.  The  sun  keeps  his  en- 
gagements unerringly.  When  humanity  dis- 
appoints, the  moon  holds ;  and  from  its 
regularity  there  rises  in  the  heart  of  man  a 
tide  of  confidence  in  the  eternal  as  surely  as 
the  waves  of  the  ocean  turn  their  tidal  front 
toward  its  beckonings. 

The  genesis  of  the  religious  sentiment  is  a 
matter  about  which  scholars  disagree,  but  all 
are  agreed  that  nature  very  early  became  a 
preacher  to  the  soul.  The  universe  soon  began 


SPIRITUAL   VALUES  181 

to  minister  to  the  heart  of  man.  The  winds 
were  early  messengers  to  the  spirit ;  indeed  they 
were  both  symbol  and  essence  of  spirit  to  our 
forefathers,  as  early  language  shows.  The  spring, 
the  brook,  and  the  river  were  to  Jesus  himself 
the  most  suggestive  symbols  of  the  eternal  life 
and  the  paternal  spirit.  "  The  truth  that  I  shall 
give  to  you  shall  be  to  you  a  well  of  water 
springing  up  into  eternal  life."  "  The  love  of 
nature  is  a  great  gift,"  says  Lubbock ;  and  it 
must  ever  mark  the  ripened  as  well  as  the 
gifted  soul.  The  heart  distorted  with  cares  and 
torn  with  passion  may  well  "flee  as  a  bird  to 
the  mountain,"  that  in  the  solitudes  of  nature 
it  may  find  the  "  peace  that  passeth  all  under- 
standing." Rock  and  tree  and  brook  will  be- 
come a  balm  to  the  fevered  soul,  bring  salvation 
to  the  sinning  spirit,  restore  the  fainting,  lift  the 
fallen,  and  save  the  lost. 

It  is  often  felt  that  the  lessons  of  nature  are 
too  subtle,  cold,  and  impassioned  save  for  the 
cultured  and  the  already  redeemed  spirit.  That 
is  to  say,  its  ministrations  are  supposed  to  be 
chiefly  for  those  who  least  need  a  ministry. 
This  suggests  still  another  spiritual  value  of 
the  country.  It  makes  religion  simple,  faith 


1 82  JESS 

unconscious.  Life  began  in  unconsciousness. 
On  its  higher  levels  it  again  becomes  unconscious. 
When  life  awoke  to  a  sense  of  its  own  exist- 
ence, when  the  personal  pronoun  in  the  first 
person  singular  came  to  be,  when  the  soul  could 
say,  "  I  am  I,"  then  the  soul  of  man  was  born. 
When  he  became  a  creature  of  introspection  and 
analysis,  he  became  as  one  of  the  gods,  knowing 
good  from  evil.  Then  he  passed  the  great 
crisis  of  nature's  Eden ;  he  left  the  joys  of  the 
brute  and  entered  into  the  bitterness  of  man. 
He  had  "eaten  of  the  fruit  of  the  tree  of 
knowledge  of  good  and  evil."  But  this  self- 
consciousness  may  be  developed  into  a  disease, 
and  on  the  higher  spirals  of  life  the  soul  swings 
around  again  into  a  divine  unconsciousness  of 
self.  Nature  helps  us  up  this  higher  incline. 
In  our  city  life  we  are  so  conspicuous  that  there 
is  danger  of  our  becoming  abnormally  anxious 
concerning  appearances.  Physically  and  spiritu- 
ally we  are  over-concerned  with  clothes,  clothes 
for  the  mind  as  well  as  for  the  body.  The 
country  has  a  tendency  to  take  the  peacock  out 
of  the  woman,  the  pedant  out  of  the  man,  and 
artificiality  out  of  the  child.  There  is  some- 
thing ridiculous  which  finally  grows  into  pathos 


SPIRITUAL  VALUES  183 

in  the  city  woman  who  changes  her  dress  two 
or  three  times  a  day  at  the  countryside,  who 
takes  her  Saratoga  trunks  to  her  shelter  under 
the  trees  and  neglects  the  great  panorama  of  the 
skies  in  her  devotion  to  the  mirror.  Poor  soul ! 
What  does  the  bluebird  care  for  her  laundered 
stripes  ?  What  note  does  the  squirrel  take  of 
her  silken  sashes  ?  The  frills  on  the  child's 
dress,  however  artistically  conceived,  are  crude 
and  coarse  compared  to  the  dainty  scallops  of 
the  maple-leaf.  The  milliner  cannot  match  the 
blue  of  the  gentian  or  the  red  of  the  cardinal- 
flower.  Slowly  but  surely  the  boy  drops  into 
jeans,  the  little  girl  becomes  familiar  with  her 
own  brown  feet  and  is  not  ashamed  of  them, 
and  the  woman,  however  fashionable,  becomes 
ashamed  of  her  laundry  bills  and  drops  into 
monochrome,  thus  blending  into  the  landscape 
instead  of  blazing  upon  it. 

All  this  symbolizes  a  parallel  change  of  heart 
and  of  mind.  Not  the  smart  things  that  other 
folks  have  said  which  one  remembers,  not  the 
bright  quotations  from  the  book,  not  the  tiresome 
repartee  of  the  boarding-house  counts  under  the 
trees,  but  the  kindly  accents,  the  saving  common- 
sense.  It  is  the  sanity  of  the  commonplace,  the 


184  JESS 

sanctity  of  simplicity,  that  is  the  grace  which  the 
earth  imparts.  Nature  breaks  the  bubbles  of  our 
conceits  and  chastens  us  with  humility.  The 
sickly  anxiety  about  one's  own  soul  is  lost  in 
communion  with  the  Over-soul.  The  camp-meet- 
ing, at  which  the  soul  is  pricked  into  a  fever  of 
self  anxiety  and  the  heart  is  turned  wrong-side 
out  for  inspection,  is  giving  way,  as  men  learn  the 
language  of  earth,  to  summer  schools  of  quiet 
study,  to  science  schools  of  investigation  and  ob- 
servation, to  Chautauqua  circles  of  those  who 
seek  communion  with  great  minds,  all  turning 
the  thoughts  away  from  self,  setting  the  heart  in 
harmony  with  nature.  "  The  simplicity  of  the 
gospel  of  Christ  "  is  a  happy  phrase  of  the  Wes- 
leys  and  their  spiritual  companions.  The  gospel 
of  Jesus  was  redolent  of  the  fields.  His  inspira- 
tion came  from  sparrows  and  lilies.  He  was  a 
rustic  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  He  was  an 
apostle  of  simplicity,  a  teacher  of  the  religion  of 
out-of-doors.  O  that  this  gracious  lesson  of  the 
earth  might  stay  with  us,  reducing  our  theologi- 
cal as  well  as  our  physical  wardrobe  to  the  plain- 
ness of  his  seamless  robe  ! 

This    country    religion    inspires   the    plainness 
though  not  the  stiffness  of  the  Quaker  garb,  the 


SPIRITUAL   VALUES  185 

simplicity  though  not  the  arbitrariness  of  the  old 
Methodist  discipline  on  these  matters.  The 
ethics  of  the  country  relieves  us  of  the  elaborate- 
ness of  the  silly  wardrobes,  the  tyranny  of  the 
dressmaker,  and  the  shameful  costliness  in  money 
and  strength  of  the  city  plumings  and  flutings.  A 
summer  by  the  riverside,  an  intimacy  with  the 
trees,  a  familiarity  with  the  grass,  ought  to  bring 
the  blush  of  shame  to  the  cheek  of  one  who  is 
prone  to  smile  and  wink  at  any  allusions  to  this 
high  crime  against  the  spirit,  instead  of  taking 
seriously  to  heart  the  tendency  to  spiritual  de- 
generacy that  springs  from  the  evasion  of  the 
ethics  of  dress. 

To  recapitulate  :  A  study  of  nature  is  a  study 
of  God.  Control  of  the  simple  facts  of  rock  and 
herb  and  bird  is  a  preparation,  I  am  tempted  to 
say  an  indispensable  preparation,  for  the  success- 
ful control  of  the  higher  and  more  subtle  facts  of 
the  shop,  the  library,  the  prison,  and  the  asylum. 
Again,  this  study  ripens  into  a  faith,  resting,  shall 
I  say,  in  the  divine  faith  of  nature.  The  inevi- 
tability of  law,  the  unbending  order  of  the  uni- 
verse, the  unrelenting  severity  of  the  seasons, 
give  the  soul  a  trust  and  a  resignation  too  often 
missed  in  our  man-made  schemes  and  the  tink- 


1 86  JESS 

ered  creeds  of  conventions.  It  gives  us  simplicity, 
the  unconscious  life  of  the  soul  that  is  ministered 
to  by  the  immensities  of  the  heavens,  by  the  per- 
fection of  a  dewdrop.  To  him  whose  spirit  is  at 
one  with  nature  comes  the  self-forgetfulness  of 
the  higher  soul.  "He  loses  himself  in  the  perfect 
whole."  Acorn  and  oak,  blue-bell  and  evening 
star,  plaintive  call  of  the  whip-poor-will  and  roll 
of  thunder,  the  mysteries  found  in  the  spoonful 
of  mud  as  well  as  the  record  deciphered  in  the 
quarry,  all  shame  the  egotism  of  man,  rebuke  the 
self-seeking  of  the  world,  expose  the  shameless- 
ness  of  man's  pretensions,  the  foolishness  of  his 
decorations.  The  higher  peace  comes  to  the 
soul  when  once  is  borne  in  upon  it  a  sense  of  re- 
lationship with  all  these ;  when  one  becomes 
certain  that  he  is  a  link  in  the  endless  chain  of 
the  universe,  a  part  of  the  divine  unity. 

The  writer  of  the  Apocalypse,  though  enjoying 
the  full  benefit  of  the  solitudes  of  Patmos,  lifted 
his  eyes  from  the  brown  earth  with  which  he 
might  have  had  full  communion,  and  saw  the  ful- 
ness of  life,  the  ultimate  triumph,  the  ideal  con- 
dition as  a  great  city,  "  coming  down  out  of 
heaven  from  God,  having  the  glory  of  God :  her 


SPIRITUAL   VALUES  187 

light  was  like  unto  a  stone  most  precious.  .  .  . 
And  the  nations  shall  walk  amidst  the  light  there- 
of." John  as  well  as  Job  was  oracular.  This 
rhapsody  of  the  recluse  is  prophetic.  Not  only 
in  the  quiet  of  nature,  but  on  the  thronging 
street,  in  the  tumult  of  human  nature  and  in  the 
triumph  of  art  does  God  minister  to  man.  So  let 
us  turn  to  the  city  and  discover  some  of  its  spir- 
itual values  to  reconcile  us  if  possible  to  the  life 
of  the  city  as  to  the  country.  There  is  valuable 
discipline  in  the  struggle  of  the  city.  There  is 
inspiration  in  the  triumphs  of  man,  and  the  high- 
est achievements  of  the  human  mind  necessitate 
the  city.  The  old  saying  that  "  God  made  the 
country  but  man  made  the  town  "  is  misleading. 
If  God  made  the  country  for  man,  he  also  made 
the  city  with  and  through  man.  The  highest 
achievement  of  nature  is  human  nature,  and  the 
greatest  outcome  of  human  nature  is  the  complex 
life  of  the  city.  London  began  in  the  ant-hill. 
Paris  is  a  perfected  hive.  In  passing  out  of  the 
country  into  the  city  we  do  not  pass  out  of  the 
sunshine  into  the  shadows,  but  out  of  light  into 
more  light.  The  highest  as  well  as  the  latest 
science  is  sociology,  the  science  of  society.  Soli- 
tary man  is  necessarily  a  fractional  man.  He 


i 88  JESS 

reaches  his  maximum  only  when  he  joins  his 
fellows  in  corporate  life. 

In  trying  to  grasp  some  of  the  spiritual  values 
of  the  city  as  well  as  of  the  country,  let  us  begin 
with  the  grimmest  inspiration.  There  is  spiritual 
profit  in  the  awful  struggle  for  existence  which  is 
going  on  in  every  great  city.  In  the  country 
man  fights  with  nature.  His  primary  struggle  is 
with  the  weather  and  the  weeds.  In  the  city  man 
enters  the  fiercer  battle  of  man  with  man.  It  is 
class  against  class,  trade  against  trade.  It  is  not 
for  me  here  to  discuss  the  principles  of  competi- 
tion in  trade ;  but  let  us  try  to  get  a  crumb  of 
comfort  out  of  the  thought  that  there  is  a  spiritual 
compensation  even  in  this  struggle.  "  The  sur- 
vival of  the  fittest "  has  had  an  immense  part  to 
play  in  the  spiritual  progress  of  the  world,  al- 
though there  comes  a  time  when  it  ripens  into  the 
diviner  law  of  the  survival  of  the  noblest,  a  vari- 
ation which  culminates  in  a  difference  in  kind. 

But  there  are  other  and  higher  inspirations  in 
the  city  than  the  grim  discipline  of  the  contest. 
Here  the  soul  expresses  itself  in  the  higher  reve- 
lations of  art.  The  Parthenon  and  St.  Mark's, 
Angelo's  dome,  and  Raphael's  madonnas  were 
inspired  by  the  city  and  created  for  it;  Shake- 


SPIRITUAL   VALUES  189 

speare,  Beethoven,  and  Wagner,  however  nur- 
tured, culminated  in  the  city.  Without  the  city 
their  works  would  have  been  impossible ;  or,  if 
possible,  they  would  have  died  at  birth.  Archi- 
tecture and  painting,  music  and  the  drama,  are 
but  varying  expressions  of  the  human  soul,  man 
rising  out  of  the  realm  of  matter  into  the  domain 
of  spirit,  man  beginning  where  God  left  off,  im- 
proving upon  nature.  He  has  already  begun  to 
build  the  holy  city  when  he  changes  the  tree  into 
timber,  the  rock  into  the  polished  marble;  when 
he  makes  perennial  the  perishable  annuals  of  the 
field,  or  makes  social  the  nation. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  country  as  the  primary 
school.  The  city  is  the  university  of  life,  where 
the  higher  branches  are  studied  and  the  harder 
problems  grappled  with.  In  the  marsh  we  find 
the  snail,  the  crayfish,  and  the  bullfrog.  In  the 
stagnant  human  swamps  of  the  city  there  are  also 
human  snails,  carrying  their  shells  upon  their 
backs,  making  a  house  of  their  own  incrusted 
thought.  There  are  human  crayfish  there  so  fear- 
ful of  the  dangers  of  the  advance  that  they  always 
travel  backward,  and  there  are  human  bullfrogs, 
inflated  and  boastful,  who  think  they  discover  in 
their  own  croaking  a  music  sweet  and  winning. 


190  JESS 

Shall  we  commend  the  study  of  the  lower  speci- 
mens of  the  marsh,  and  find  no  profit  in  the  study 
of  the  higher  species  of  the  same  genera  whose 
home  is  on  the  avenue? 

Prize  the  birds  as  you  please,  their  chatter 
in  the  boughs  is  not  comparable  with  the  chat- 
ter of  the  children  in  the  park.  Admire  as 
we  can  and  should  the  tree  in  the  forest,  we 
must  recognize  that  even  the  tree  reaches  its 
ultimate  beauty  and  utility  in  the  cabinet-shop, 
under  the  dexterous  hand  and  skilled  eye  of  the 
artisan. 

Aside  from  the  inspiring  challenge  the  city 
gives  to  the  intellect,  it  is  here  that  man  enters 
into  his  full  inheritance.  The  toils  and  triumphs 
of  his  fore-elders  are  now  within  his  reach.  In 
the  city  he  walks  the  streets  paved  and  lighted 
by  the  labor  of  his  father  and  grandfather.  In 
the  library  he  finds  the  lore  of  the  centuries. 
His  Aryan  forefathers  hand  down  their  words  to 
him  through  the  books  that  are  here  accessible  to 
the  poorest.  The  Parthenon  is  dead,  but  some 
trace  of  its  fluted  columns  is  found  on  the  porch 
of  the  working-man,  and  there  are  hints  of  the 
cathedral,  that  majestic  prayer  in  stone  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  in  the  pine-spired  meeting-house 


SPIRITUAL   VALUES  191 

of  the  last  Methodist  schism.  In  the  city  the 
poorest  may  enjoy  the  architecture  which  the 
money  of  the  wealthiest  has  made  possible.  In 
the  city  admirable  copies  of  the  works  of  the 
masters  of  the  brush  and  chisel  are  within  the 
reach  of  almost  everybody,  as  they  will  be  of 
quite  everybody  when  that  great  city  of  the 
Apocalypse  which  is  being  builded  on  the  earth 
is  completed. 

But  however  guarded  my  statement  may  be, 
and  however  open  we  may  try  to  keep  our 
minds,  the  very  attempt  to  balance  advantages, 
to  force  a  debit  and  credit  account  between  city 
and  country  is  dangerous,  and  liable  to  do  vio- 
lence to  the  facts.  No  more  surely  are  the  city 
and  country  interdependent  and  interlocked  in 
the  economic  interests  of  society  than  are  they 
interdependent  and  interlocked  in  the  life  of 
every  individual.  That  country  boy  or  girl  is 
rustic  and  undeveloped  who  has  not  seen  some- 
thing of  the  city's  achievements  and  known 
something  of  its  inspirations.  Equally  crude 
and  imperfect  is  the  development  of  the  city 
boy  or  girl  that  contains  no  experiences  acquired 
on  the  farm,  in  the  woods,  and  in  the  field.  A 
college  graduate,  male  or  female,  that  cannot 


192  JESS 

harness  a  horse  and,  if  need  be,  milk  a  cow,  is 
imperfectly  educated. 

Better  than  my  discussion  is  the  wisdom  in- 
volved in  this  bit  of  wayside  experience  which 
came  to  me  long  ago,  when,  a  solitary  pedes- 
trian, I  threw  myself  down  under  a  noble  old 
oak  on  a  country  by-road,  twelve  miles  from  a 
railroad  and  probably  more  than  "  twelve  miles 
from  a  lemon."  As  I  slept,  and  read,  and 
mused,  one  hour  followed  another,  until  either 
the  anxiety  or  the  curiosity  at  the  neighboring 
farm-house,  forty  rods  away,  became  too  great  to 
be  endured.  So  the  hired  man  —  they  were  just 
through  stacking  —  mounted  a  horse  and  rode 
over  to  see  who  I  was,  what  I  was  doing,  where 
I  came  from,  and  where  I  was  going.  Instead 
of  resenting  all  this  as  an  intrusion  I  was  in  a 
mood  to  meet  the  young  man  on  his  own 
ground,  and  he  soon  found  that  I  could  ask 
more  questions  than  he  could.  Gradually  we  be- 
came confidential,  and,  with  some  half-ripe  apples 
which  he  found  in  his  pockets,  we  had  a  quiet 
communion-service  under  the  tree.  That  awk- 
ward, half-formed,  twenty-year-old,  Irish  farm- 
hand was  more  interesting  than  even  the  "  Carlyle 
and  Emerson  Correspondence "  which  I  carried 


SPIRITUAL   VALUES  193 

in  my  haversack  and  which  constituted  perhaps 
two  pounds  of  my  four-pound  baggage. 

Born  in  the  neighborhood,  left  fatherless  at 
the  age  of  twelve,  all  the  schooling  he  ever  had 
was  at  the  rickety  schoolhouse  "just  back  there 
a  bit."  He  had  taken  the  temperance  pledge 
for  seven  years  when  fourteen  years  old.  There 
was  one  year  yet  "  before  his  time  was  up."  He 
had  not  yet  made  up  his  mind  whether  he  would 
renew,  but  he  did  not  think  he  would  ever  drink 
very  much,  "  although  he  felt  kind  o'  lonesome 
like  when  he  was  with  the  b'ys,  never  to  take 
nothing."  His  mother  had  brought  him  up  to 
go  to  church,  eight  miles  away,  every  Sunday, 
and  the  old  priest  used  to  teach  him  "  a  good 
bit."  He  learned  from  him  a  good  deal  about 
Columbus,  Washington,  and  "  sech  like,"  be- 
sides what  he  had  been  taught  about  the  Catho- 
lic religion.  But  when  the  old  priest  died,  a 
young  priest  came  from  Chicago.  He  did  not 
think  the  new  priest  knew  much,  and  he  "  never 
cared  to  go  to  church  much  any  more,  except 
for  his  mother's  sake."  He  was  glad  to  know 
that  I  came  from  Chicago.  He  had  a  friend 
who  lived  there,  a  schoolmate.  I  asked  him 
where  his  friend  lived.  "  On  Wabash  Street." 


194  JESS 

"  What  is  his  name  ? "  I  asked.  He  replied, 
"  She  is  a  gerl,  and  her  name  is  McGinnis." 
The  tremor  in  the  voice  and  the  blush  on  the 
face  told  me  that  the  boy  wanted  to  give  me 
his  heart's  deepest  secret.  He  had  not  seen 
her  for  two  and  a  half  years.  She  did  not  need 
to  work  out;  but  she  wanted  to  go  to  Chicago 
to  learn  "  how  to  do  things  better  than  they 
were  done  in  that  neighborhood."  She  was 
coming  home  about  Christmas ;  and  when  he 
was  twenty-one,  his  mother  was  going  to  give 
him,  the  only  child,  his  father's  farm  of  eighty 
acres.  He  guessed  that  then  probably  they 
would  get  married.  He  himself  had  been  work- 
ing out  for  a  year  because  the  man  he  was 
working  for  was  a  good  farmer,  and  he  wanted 
to  learn  how  to  do  some  things. 

The  mellowness  of  this  clumsy  boy's  heart, 
the  strong  but  mute  way  in  which  his  life  was 
reaching  upward  toward  something  a  little  bet- 
ter than  the  life  about  him,  and  the  tender  con- 
fidence of  these  two  simple  hearts,  —  one  fitting 
herself  in  a  Wabash  Avenue  kitchen  for  matronly 
duties,  the  other  trying  to  merit  her  superior  cul- 
ture by  husbanding  his  forces  in  one  of  the  most 
out-of-the-way  nooks  of  Wisconsin,  —  seemed  to 


SPIRITUAL   VALUES  195 

me  to  suggest  depths  of  spiritual  forces  and  dis- 
close the  subsoil  strength  of  human  nature.  I 
may  never  know  the  sequel.  It  may  have 
proved  disappointing ;  but  we  have  every  reason 
to  hope  that  that  home,  which  combined  the 
training  of  city  and  country,  though  attained 
in  a  way  that  classed  the  student  of  life  in  the 
city  kitchen  and  on  the  country  farm  under  the 
name  of  "  help,"  raised  the  average  of  home- 
making  in  that  countryside.  Presumably  that 
eighty-acre  farm  is  a  better  home  for  the  ex- 
perience which  the  good  wife  obtained  on  Wa- 
bash  Avenue,  and  she  stands  higher  in  the 
community  and  is  a  better  mother  because  she 
joined  life's  issues  with  the  country  "  farm-hand  " 
rather  than  with  the  city  drayman. 

Out  of  this  complex  life  comes  that  spiritual 
sympathy  which  ought  to  reach  from  the  pauper 
to  the  millionnaire,  from  the  pale  slave  of  the 
sweat-shop  to  the  restless  heart  of  the  imperi- 
ous woman  who  spends  miserable  days  amidst 
elegant  surroundings,  and  beats  her  pillow  in 
sleepless  anguish  over  thwarted  ambitions  and 
dissipated  energies.  The  city  is  a  teacher  of 
the  humanities  as  the  country  never  can  be. 
It  is  in  the  city  that  the  poor,  beaten,  bruised, 


196  JESS 

blistered  horse  most  often  needs  a  friend.  It  is 
in  the  city  that  the  greatest  solitude  overtakes 
the  human  soul.  There  is  no  desert  so  dreary 
to  the  human  heart  as  the  social  desert  of  the 
great  city  boarding-house,  where  no  one  knows 
and  no  one  cares  whence  the  stranger  has  come 
or  whither  he  goes.  The  altruistic  heart  is 
drawn  to  the  city  as  the  mother  is  drawn  to 
the  crying  child.  It  is  our  spiritual  blindness, 
the  undeveloped  condition  of  our  souls,  that 
locates  sublimity  on  the  mountain-top  only,  and 
finds  poetry  in  forest  depths  alone.  There  is 
sublimity  there  and  poetry  there,  but  there  is 
more  sublimity  and  more  poetry  where  a  hu- 
man soul  towers  over  the  multitudes  in  the 
great  city,  rising  into  mountain-like  majesty 
above  its  fellows.  Had  we  fine  discernment, 
such  heights  would  move  us  with  an  awe  greater 
than  that  inspired  by  the  Andes  or  the  Alps. 
The  highest  mountain  is  situated  somewhere 
in  the  chain  of  the  Himalayas ;  but  there  is 
a  sublimity  that  gathers  around  the  head  of 
that  peasant  prophet,  walking  the  streets  of 
Jerusalem,  which  no  mountain  in  Asia  equals. 
Yankee  sagacity  did  well  in  naming  the  moun- 
tain peaks  of  New  England  after  the  great 


SPIRITUAL    VALUES  197 

Americans,  —  Washington,  Adams,  Webster,  — 
but  these  men  dwarf  the  mountains ;  and  the 
hills  are  made  to  wear  names  that  unfortunately 
suggest  their  insignificance  and  their  inadequacy. 
Emerson  sang  of  Monadnoc,  that  awoke  within 
him  "a  thousand  minstrels."  But  the  poet  of  the 
mountain  is  a  sublimer  fact  than  the  mountain  he 
interprets.  Emerson  is  greater  than  his  Monadnoc. 
He  who  can  weigh,  measure,  and  calculate  the  com- 
ing and  the  going  of  a  star  is  greater  than  that  star. 
So  whichever  way  we  look,  the  city,  however 
meagre,  aye,  the  most  wretched,  beer-bedrugged 
town  of  the  West,  is  a  bigger  fact,  a  greater  study, 
a  more  inspiring  presence  to  the  spiritual  man 
than  any  seaside  or  waterside.  What  would  the 
ocean  be  to  us  were  there  not  a  Homer  in  the 
heart  to  recognize  and  interpret  its  restless  bil- 
lows ?  And  that  Homer  in  the  heart  is  at  home 
in  the  city.  It  is  said  that  seven  cities  claim  the 
nativity  of  the  Homer  of  the  Iliad  and  the 
Odyssey.  Every  city  is  the  birthplace  of  this 
Homer  of  the  human  soul  that  clothes  the  moun- 
tain with  meaning,  invests  the  ocean  with  majesty, 
robs  the  storm  of  its  terror.  After  all,  the  old 
blind  poet  of  the  Greeks  strikes  the  central 
sanctity  and  suggests  the  highest  inspiration 


198  JESS 

when  he  says,  "  For  minstrels  from  all  men  on 
earth  get  their  meed  of  honor  and  worship,  inas- 
much as  the  Muse  teacheth  them  the  path  of 
song  and  loveth  the  tribe  of  minstrels." 

But  comparison  here  above  all  places  is  invidi- 
ous. There  is  no  real  antagonism  between 
country  and  town  ;  there  ought  to  be  no  conflict 
of  interests  between  field  and  city.  All  our  arti- 
ficial distinctions  here  break  down.  The  city  is 
the  child  of  nature  as  much  as  the  forest.  Ar- 
chitecture is  a  department  of  natural  science  as 
much  as  geology  and  botany. 

"  Earth  proudly  wears  the  Parthenon, 
As  the  best  gem  upon  her  zone, 
And  Morning  opes  with  haste  her  lids 
To  gaze  upon  the  Pyramids; 
O'er  England's  abbeys  bend  the  sky, 
As  on  its  friends,  with  kindred  eye; 
For  out  of  Thought's  interior  sphere 
These  wonders  rose  to  upper  air; 
And  Nature  gladly  gave  them  place, 
Adopted  them  into  her  race, 
And  granted  them  an  equal  date 
With  Andes  and  with  Ararat." 

The  lines  of  country  and  city  are  interchange- 
able. Nature  is  in  the  city,  not  alone  in  the  park, 


SPIRITUAL   VALUES  199 

but  also  in  the  alleys.  She  has  her  scavengers  at 
work  imuniformed  by  the  Civic  Federation,  more 
skilful  and  diligent  than  its  employees.  In  the 
"  mud  and  scum  "  of  the  city  as  of  the  country, 

"There  alway,  alway  something  sings"; 

and  so  in  the  country  the  city  is  always  present. 
There  life  has  its  struggles.  Human  tasks  are 
there  ameliorated  by  invention,  toil  is  relieved  by 
art,  and  solitude  dissipated  by  letters  and  the 
papers  that  put  the  farmer  in  daily  touch  with 
Bombay  and  London.  Both  country  and  city 
conspire  to  bring  their  contributions  to  the  spir- 
itual life. 

The  situation  is  a  hopeful  one.  The  chasm  is 
being  narrowed,  artificial  lines  are  being  borne 
down.  The  distinctions  between  city  and  country 
are  fading.  The  rustic  wears  urban  clothes  and 
greets  you  with  urban  manners.  The  citizen  is 
no  longer  necessarily  a  resident  of  the  city,  as  the 
word  implies.  On  the  other  hand,  more  and 
more,  let  us  pray,  may  the  dweller  of  the  city 
find  the  simple  heart,  the  unpretentious  mind, 
the  uncalculating  soul,  such  as  I  tried  to  show  at 
the  outset  is  the  gift  of  the  country  to  him  who 
enters  into  its  higher  ministrations. 


200  JESS 

Job  was  right  when  he  said,  "  Speak  to  the 
earth  and  it  will  teach  thee."  But  John  was  also 
true  when  he  predicted  that  the  final  triumph 
would  come  in  an  ordered  city  "  in  the  light  of 
which  the  nations  will  walk  "  and  to  which  "  the 
kings  of  the  earth  will  bring  their  glory."  John 
saw  it  descending  from  heaven.  Perhaps  we  in  the 
spirit  of  science  would  prefer  to  see  it  ascending 
out  of  the  earth,  rising  out  of  the  past ;  but 
in  either  case  it  is  a  city  to  be  on  the  earth,  a  city 
whose  gates  are  angel-guarded,  a  city  into  which 
"  There  shall  in  no  wise  enter  anything  that 
defileth,  neither  anything  whatsoever  that  work- 
eth  abomination  or  maketh  a  lie."  Such  a  city  it 
is  our  privilege  to  build.  Such  a  city  we  already 
have  in  embryo  here  on  the  shores  of  Lake 
Michigan.  We  are  the  artisans  called  to  build 
a  shining  city  of  justice,  the  home  of  righteous- 
ness. Already  jasper  and  crystal,  sapphire  and 
chalcedony,  emerald  and  sardonyx,  chrysolite  and 
beryl,  topaz,  jacinth,  and  amethyst  embellish  our 
city  more  profusely  perhaps  than  even  the  vision 
of  John  conceived.  It  only  waits  a  consecration 
of  spirit,  a  dedication  of  heart,  a  perfection  of  life, 
to  make  of  Chicago  the  "  holy  city,  a  new  Jeru- 
salem in  the  light  of  which  the  nations  will  walk," 


SPIRITUAL   VALUES  201 

a  city  the  gates  of  which  "  shall  not  be  shut  at  all 
by  day  for  there  shall  be  no  night  there."  To 
the  completion  of  this  new  Jerusalem  on  the 
shores  of  Lake  Michigan  we  are  called.  It  takes 
the  imagination  of  man,  the  winged  powers  of  the 
soul,  to  read  the  lesson  of  earth.  It  needs  more 
of  this  winged  power  to  find  the  parallel  lessons 
of  encouragement  and  inspiration  in  the  city,  and 
only  those  who  have  mastered  the  multiplication 
table  of  the  country  can  successfully  grapple  with 
the  algebra  of  the  city.  Many  there  are  who  face 
with  courage  the  threatening  gloom  of  the 
country,  but  abandon  the  high  problems  of  the 
city  and  shrink  into  the  mean  dimensions  of  self- 
ish pursuit  under  the  cowardly  apology,  "  There 
is  no  use.  The  forces  of  evil  are  too  much  for 
us." 

Happily,  love's  lines  cannot  be  permanently 
broken.  There  is  an  apostolic  succession  that 
passes  along  the  gospel  word  and  the  gospel  life 
from  generation  to  generation,  from  century  to 
century.  The  Holy  Ghost  continues  its  minis- 
trations, not  only  through  the  lines  of  surpliced 
bishops,  but  through  the  humbler  lines  of  good 
women  and  true  men,  and  the  still  more  lowly 
lines  of  the  humble  animals.  I  look  back  across 


202  JESS 

my  army  experiences  into  the  farmyard  of  my 
boyhood,  and  recall  with  pleasure  the  horses  I 
have  petted  and  who  have  reciprocated  my  love 
with  faithful  service  and  high  demeanor.  All 
along  the  way  there  is  an  apostolic  succession  in 
horses.  My  Jess  left  me,  but  she  left  behind 
her  a  love  for  and  a  need  of  her  kind  in  the 
heart,  and  for  me  this  place  was  filled  by  the 
same  providence  that  brought  Jess.  And  so 
the  year  after  her  going  I  went  to  my  summer 
home  again  as  a  solitary  horseman. 

Now  it  was  with  my  stronger,  more  sedate, 
but  ever  competent  and  ever  faithful  Roos. 
Without  jealousy  or  envy  she  took  the  smaller 
place  in  my  heart,  and  gratefully  accepted  and 
promptly  responded  to  the  caresses  which  were 
given  to  her  with  another  in  mind.  Let  no  one, 
knowing  the  story  of  Jess,  resent  the  appearance 
of  her  successor,  this  goodly  bay  mare.  Let  no 
one  taunt  her  with  inferiority  or  me  with  in- 
fidelity. Rather  have  we  both  honored  Jess  by 
showing  that  she  not  only  made  a  better  and  a 
tenderer  place  for  all  horses,  but  made  her  own 
place  so  large  that  love  must  needs  fill  it  with 
further  comradeship  between  man  and  horse. 
Should  any  one  be  unkind  enough  to  institute 


SPIRITUAL   VALUES  203 

an  invidious  comparison  between  the  stately 
Roos  and  the  dainty  Jess,  or  breathe  a  reproach 
for  her  failure  to  reach  the  high  goal  which 
Jess  attained,  let  some  justice-loving  Joris  cry 
in  vindication  of  her,  as  he  did  for  her  whose 
name  she  bears, 

"  Stay  spur  ! 

Your  Roos  galloped  bravely,  the  fault's  not  in  her." 

This  time  it  was  that  Roos  and  I  picked  our  way 
by  farms  and  through  hamlets,  through  two  hun- 
dred miles  of  sunshine  and  shadow,  to  our  com- 
mon pleasure-grounds  on  the  Wisconsin  River. 
On  our  last  day  out  in  this  journey,  the  growing 
heat  led  us  to  take  a  twenty-mile  jaunt  in  the 
dark  of  the  early  morning,  that  we  might  escape 
the  heat  of  the  day.  At  two  o'clock  on  a  memo- 
rable Sunday  morning,  we  were  on  the  road  while 
all  the  world  was  asleep.  Even  the  birds  were 
in  dreamland,  and  the  leaves  were  still.  There 
was  a  double  depth  to  the  sky,  and  the  stars 
seemed  to  nod  and  blink.  In  this  stillness  that 
was  almost  preternatural,  the  sky  became  o'er- 
cast,  ghostly  shadows  came  slowly  up  out  of  the 
west.  The  naval  squadrons  of  the  sky  wheeled 
into  action,  and  distant  flashes  of  light  indicated 


204  JESS 

that  the  engagement  was  already  on,  beyond  the 
far  horizon-line.  The  great  men-of-war  bore 
down  upon  the  solitary  horse  and  rider.  The 
rumble  of  their  cannonading  was  heard.  The 
crack  of  their  heavier  ordnance  became  start- 
ling. A  thrill  of  apprehension  quivered  through 
the  horse  and  smote  the  rider.  One  gallant  frig- 
ate, full-rigged  and  ominous,  bore  down  with 
impetuous  speed  upon  us.  Its  bowsprit  pierced 
the  moon  and  split  it,  its  black  hull  ran  it  down 
and  obliterated  it,  and  pitchy  darkness  was  o'er 
all  the  earth.  There  was  no  shelter  at  hand,  or 
if  there  was,  we  knew  not  how  to  reach  it. 
Roos,  with  cautious  step  and  vigilant  ear,  slack- 
ened her  willing  pace  and  groped.  We  stopped 
and  waited.  The  world  seemed  on  the  eve  of 
obliteration,  but  soon  the  cloudy  squadron  sailed 
over  us  and  did  not  crush  us.  The  keels  of 
those  phantom  ships  flashed  with  electricity 
above  our  heads,  and  still  left  us  unscathed 
and  unscorched.  Slowly  in  the  wake  of  the 
storm  the  stars  appeared  one  by  one,  and  lo ! 
the  shattered  moon  was  there  in  its  complete- 
ness. The  air  was  cooler.  Dawn,  "  the  rosy- 
fingered,"  met  the  shadows  of  the  sky-fleet  and 
scattered  them,  and  the  birds  began  to  twitter. 


SPIRITUAL   VALUES  205 

The  cocks  crowed  in  the  barnyard.  The  dogs 
barked  their  welcome.  The  cow-bells  began  to 
tinkle,  and  drowsy  farm  men  and  women  came 
out  to  milk.  The  storm  was  gone.  Day  had 
come.  The  world  was  moving  on,  and  the 
memorable  ride  ended  in  a  welcome  breakfast 
for  horse  and  rider. 

More  than  once  have  we  encountered  such  a 
spectacle  as  this  in  the  social  and  civic  life  of 
this  great  city  of  Chicago.  Once  what  seemed  a 
destructive  armada  from  heaven  bore  down  upon 
our  city  and  it  was  engulfed  in  what  seemed  to 
be  the  destructive  gloom  of  anarchy.  Every  star 
went  out,  the  moon  was  pierced,  and  there  was  no 
sun.  Riot,  bloodshed,  and  the  ghastly  gallows 
fruit  followed.  Then  the  fleet  bore  by,  and  we 
found  that  it  was  only  a  cloud,  and  that  it  had 
cleared  the  atmosphere.  The  moon  was  in  its 
old  place,  not  a  star  blotted  out.  The  sun  came 
as  of  old.  After  terror  came  indignation,  after 
indignation  regret,  out  of  regret  pity,  and  to-day 
we  are  ashamed  of  our  faithless  mood,  we  regret 
our  anger,  and  wish  that  our  anarchists,  more  de- 
luded than  criminal,  were  still  alive  with  us  in 
the  light  of  day. 

Again  came  the  convulsions  of  the  great  strike. 


206  JESS 

Wrongs  ripened  into  desperation,  and  desperation 
into  mistakes,  to  be  followed  by  other  wrongs. 
But  that  storm  passed  by,  and  the  birds  began 
to  sing  again.  Then  came  a  financial  o'ercast. 
Men  became  panic-stricken  because  a  few  banks 
had  broken.  Reason  almost  deserted  its  throne. 
Conscience  quite  lost  its  bearings  simply  be- 
cause the  "  times  were  hard,"  and  things  seemed 
to  be  going  to  the  bad.  Perhaps  they  seem  so 
still  to  some ;  but  let  us  take  to  heart  that  Sun- 
day morning  sermon  of  the  cloud-storm  and 
remember  that  the  cloud,  however  borne  along 
by  the  tempest,  is  but  a  cloud,  and  must  abide 
the  limitations  of  a  cloud.  It  cannot  perma- 
nently obscure  the  sun.  The  splitting  of  the 
moon  and  the  blotting  of  the  stars  are  only 
seeming.  They  remain ;  the  clouds  pass. 

Thus  it  is  that  over  country  and  city  one 
economy  obtains.  Spirit  and  matter  are  con- 
ditioned by  kindred  laws,  and  we  can  count 
with  equal  certainty  upon  the  stability  of  the 
right  and  the  transitory  quality  of  the  wrong. 
For  life  must  "  on  and  upward  go."  It  is  for  us 
to  construct  a  celestial  superstructure  on  ter- 
restrial foundations,  making  our  earthly  city  so 
clean,  wholesome,  temperate,  beautiful,  that  it 


SPIRITUAL   VALUES  207 

will   indeed   be   a  "  new  Jerusalem,  the   city  of 
God,  the  light  of  the  nations." 

"  Thy  people  shall  build  the  ancient  desolations, 
The  ruins  of  many  generations  shall  they  restore ; 
Thou  shah  be  called  the  repairer  of  the  breach, 
The  restorer  of  ways  for  inhabitants." 


THE    RELIGION    OF    THE 
BIRD'S    NEST 


There  is  a  Power  whose  care 
Teaches  thy  way  along  that  pathless  coast,  — 
The  desert  and  illimitable  air,  — 

Lone  wandering,  but  not  lost. 


Thou'rt  gone,  the  abyss  of  heaven 
Hath  swallowed  up  thy  form  ;  yet  on  my  heart 
Deeply  hath  sunk  the  lesson  thou  hast  given, 

And  shall  not  soon  depart. 

He  who,  from  zone  to  zone, 

Guides  through  the  boundless  sky  thy  certain  flight, 
In  the  long  way  that  I  must  tread  alone 

Will  lead  my  steps  aright. 

WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT. 


THE    RELIGION    OF    THE 
BIRD'S    NEST 

In  that  day  will  I  make  a  covenant  for  them  with  the 
beasts  of  the  field,  and  with  the  fowls  of  heaven,  and  with  the 
creeping  things  of  the  ground:  and  I  will  break  the  bow  and 
the  sword  and  the  battle  out  of  the  land,  and  will  make  them  to 
lie  down  safely.  And  I  will  betroth  thee  unto  me  for  ever. 

HOSEA  ii.  1 8,  19. 

A  GOOD  field-glass  is  a  double-barrelled  gun  that 
brings  down  the  birds  without  injuring  them.  It 
enables  one  to  count  their  marks  and  note  their 
motion  and  still  leave  them  free.  It  helps  one 
to  note  color,  form,  and  action,  to  delight  in  the 
delicate  markings,  the  quaint  outlines,  the  subtle 
personality  of  the  many  birds  that  flit  through 
the  boughs.  The  first  service  of  the  field-glass 
is  to  heighten  what  we  superficially  call  the  poetry 
of  nature.  The  bird  seems  through  the  glass  to 
be  not  only  the  freest,  but  the  happiest,  of  Na- 
ture's children,  with  superabundant  life  flowing 
and  overflowing  from  dawn  to  dark  ;  and  when 
the  glass  refuses  to  serve,  the  ear  testifies  that 


212  JESS 

there  is  no  cessation,  but  still  the  stream  of  life 
continues  from  dark  to  dawn.  On  Tower  PI  ill, 
hot  weather  or  cold,  wet  weather  or  dry,  there  is 
always  a  bird  in  sight,  and  in  the  main  he  seems 
triumphant  and  happy. 

The  next  service  of  the  glass  is  to  intensify  the 
artistic  element  in  nature.  It  was  in  bird-realm 
that  Darwin  found  his  highest  warrant  for  the 
daring  generalization  expressed  in  the  words, 
"  There  is  a  tendency  in  Nature  to  ornamenta- 
tion." How  varied,  how  brilliant,  how  delicate, 
how  subdued  and  subordinated  one  to  the  other, 
are  the  colors  of  the  bird.  How  curious  is  the 
blending  of  bird-colors  all  the  way  from  the 
dainty  bronze  of  the  humming-bird  to  the  ag- 
gressive blue  of  the  jay.  From  the  charming 
dun  of  the  brown  thrasher  to  the  proud  banner 
of  the  red-headed  woodpecker,  everything  is 
beautiful,  and  the  more  the  ear  is  attuned  to  bird 
notes,  the  more  searching  seems  the  melody. 
Whatever  it  means,  and  however  elusive  it  may 
be,  it  leaves  upon  the  human  ear  an  impression  of 
buoyancy.  From  the  military  long-roll  of  the 
woodpecker  to  the  confident  and  continuous 
interrogations  of  the  red-eyed  vireo,  the  preacher- 
bird,  with  his  "  Do-you-see-it  ?  "  "  Do-you- 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  BIRD'S  NEST     213 

know-it?"  "  Do-you-believe-it  ?  "  "  Do-you- 
believe-it  ?  "  there  is  an  optimistic  accent.  The 
harsh  screech  of  the  blue-jay  as  well  as  the  scarey 
"  Tu-who-oo  "  of  the  midnight  owl,  bespeaks  a 
dominant  world  of  life.  Even  the  most  pensive 
call  of  the  birds,  from  the  pleading  note  of  the 
obscure  pewee  up  to  the  plaintive  call  of  the 
whip-poor-will,  is  pathos  without  a  suggestion  of 
torture,  emotion  without  agony,  feeling  without 
violence.  The  saddest  songs  are  sweet  songs. 

Perhaps  the  glass,  unaided  by  reflection  born 
of  study,  would  carry  us  no  farther  than  this  in 
our  search  for  a  spiritual  lesson  from  the  birds. 
In  all  times  they  have  stood  for  the  religion  of 
joy  and  beauty.  They  have  represented  the  gos- 
pel of  freedom  and  melody.  The  psalmist  noted 
with  delight  that  "  the  swallow  has  found  a  nest 
'neath  the  altars  of  the  Most  High,"  and  Shelley 
aspired  to  the  ecstasy  of  the  skylark  when  he  sang, 

"Teach  me  half  the  gladness 
That  thy  brain  must  know, 
Such  harmonious  madness 
From  my  lips  would  flow 
The  world  should  listen  then,  as  I  am  listening  now." 

It  is  often  well  for  us  to  take  the  poet's  short 
cut,  and  delight  in  the  final  triumph  without  tak- 


214  JESS 

ing  thought  of  the  long  struggle  that  preceded  it, 
rejoicing  in  the  fact  without  counting  the  cost 
thereof.  It  is  well  at  times  to  trust  in  the  faith 
of  the  old  prophet  and  believe  that  God  has 
made  a  covenant  with  the  fowls  of  the  air  and 
with  the  creeping  things  of  the  ground ;  that  he 
has  betrothed  himself  to  them  and  to  us  forever. 

But  I  would  like  to  bring  a  profounder  lesson 
out  of  the  bird-realm  than  this.  All  the  beauty, 
harmony,  and  apparent  freedom  are  misleading 
and  unreal  until  we  go  beneath  and  behind  the 
blithe  song  and  the  exquisite  plumage. 

Before  I  arrived  at  Westhope  cottage,  early  in 
July,  a  pair  of  mourning  doves  had  already  taken 
possession  of  a  well-hooded  nook  under  the 
cornice  just  over  the  porch.  It  must  have 
seemed  to  this  demure  pair  of  home-seekers  an 
ideal  spot  for  a  homestead.  "Here,"  said  the  shy 
birds,  "is  a  hidden  nook  in  a  silent  place  where 
the  intruding  enemy  in  feathers  or  furs  will  not 
find  us  out."  The  wire  netting,  stretched  to 
receive  the  climbing  ivy,  must  have  seemed  to 
them  a  rare  and  unique  provision,  a  natural  plat- 
form created  for  the  crate  of  twigs  in  which,  in 
due  time,  they  might  cradle  their  young.  The 
wire  muSt  have  seemed  all  the  more  providential 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  BIRD'S  NEST     215 

because,  if  the  truth  must  be  told,  these  doves,  so 
dainty  of  step,  so  prim  in  costume,  like  some 
other  bipeds  who  walk  abroad,  similarly  plumed, 
are  poor  home-makers  and  untidy  housekeepers. 
You  can  imagine  the  surprise  and  disappoint- 
ment of  these  birds,  who  so  love  the  solitude 
and  are  so  shy  of  men,  at  finding  one  morning 
an  unfriendly,  terrible  man  walking  the  porch 
upon  which  they  had  entered  a  claim.  He  was 
to  them  a  rude  intruder  upon  their  preemption, 
an  unwarranted  menace,  an  unwelcome  poacher 
on  their  premises.  Their  surprise  and  disap- 
pointment, nay,  their  unquestioned  alarm,  were 
matched  by  my  delight;  and  so  at  once  there 
settled  down  upon  the  bird  and  man  occu- 
pants of  that  cottage  in  the  woods  a  mutual 
restraint.  We  were  both  possessed  of  a  fear 
which  haunted  us  more  or  less  for  nearly  six 
weeks.  I  was  afraid  they  would  go ;  they  were 
afraid  I  would  stay.  They  summoned  up  all 
their  courage,  determined  to  bear  to  the  utmost 
the  threatened  danger  rather  than  abandon  the 
domestic  altar  and  sacrifice  the  new  life  within 
the  shell.  I  determined  to  forbear  so  far  as 
possible  the  intruding  step,  the  thoughtless  noise, 
the  threatening  presence.  It  was  a  curious  play 


216  JESS 

of  emotions  between  the  pigeons  and  this  mem- 
ber of  the  genus  homo,  between  whom  physical 
nature  had  established  an  antagonism.  Physi- 
cally speaking,  I  was  the  natural  enemy,  and 
still  I  was  as  anxious  to  bestow  as  they  were 
to  escape  my  attentions.  It  was  a  slow,  painful, 
care-taking  process,  this  establishing  of  an  un- 
derstanding between  man  and  the  wild  doves 
on  their  nest.  No  youth  ever  proceeded  'to 
woo  a  coy  maiden  with  more  care,  more  anx- 
ious excitement,  or  more  uncertainty  as  to  the 
result,  than  did  I  to  woo  the  confidence  of 
my  doves. 

Fortunately,  in  the  earlier  weeks  I  was  the 
solitary  occupant  of  the  cottage ;  and  the  larger 
section  of  the  northwest  corner  of  the  porch 
was  ceded  to  the  dove  tenants.  My  voice  was 
modulated,  my  coming  and  going  softened ;  but 
sometimes  I  would  forget,  and  a  snatch  of  song, 
which  must  have  been  a  rasping  discord  to  the 
mother  ear,  would  strain  her  nerves  beyond  en- 
durance, the  whistling  wings  would  remind  me 
too  late  of  my  rudeness,  and  the  bird  would  be 
gone.  Then  there  was  Sambo,  the  dog,  to 
quiet ;  there  were  curious  little  boys  in  the 
neighborhood  to  be  kept  down ;  and  inquisitive 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  BIRD'S  NEST     217 

visitors  who  would  persist  in  failing  to  see  with- 
out getting  close  enough  to  scare  the  occupant, 
and  then  the  bird  would  have  to  fly.  Some- 
times my  visitors  would  wear  their  welcome  out, 
for  the  anxious  bird  on  the  bough  and  the  anx- 
ious proprietor  on  the  porch  knew  that  every 
moment  they  stayed  lowered  the  temperature 
of  the  exposed  eggs,  thereby  perilling  life,  the 
divine  mystery  of  being  that  was  being  called 
out  of  chaos  into  cosmos  within  the  marble 
walls  of  the  two  bird-eggs. 

Gradually  our  relations  became  better  adjusted, 
the  sanctities  of  the  porch  were  better  recognized 
and  more  sacredly  observed,  the  confidences  of 
the  nest  grew  stronger,  and  the  brilliant,  black, 
beady  eyes  looked  on  with  less  fear  and  more 
curiosity.  Talking  and  reading,  work  and  les- 
sons, went  on  within  ten  or  twelve  feet  of  the 
place  where  these  shy  denizens  of  shady  nooks 
were  playing  their  part  in  the  mysterious  drama 
of  life,  and  still  they  persisted  in  their  strangely 
beautiful  domesticity. 

Toward  the  last,  I,  who  had  carried  wild  dis- 
may and  precipitated  hasty  retreat  at  a  distance  of 
sixteen  feet,  was  permitted  to  approach  within  a 
yard,  and  the  situation  could  be  studied  eye  to  eye 


2i8  JESS 

unflinchingly.  Day  after  day  I  watched  the  do- 
mestic drama  of  human  life  written  small  within 
the  crude  nest  of  twigs.  There  was  always  the 
faithful  sharing  of  responsibility.  Each  morning 
with  a  murmuring  "  Coo-oo-oo,"  the  father  bird 
would  come  and  exchange  responsibilities  with 
the  mother  bird,  sitting  with  feminine  grace  upon 
egg  and  birdling,  bearing  in  his  turn  with  mas- 
culine pride  his  portion  of  the  supplies.  The 
naked,  ungainly  little  ones  gradually  took  upon 
themselves  feathers,  form,  and  vitality,  and  at 
last  there  came  a  morning  when  the  responsi- 
bilities of  life  began  to  be  felt.  Fear  of  some- 
thing a  little  more  terrible  than  the  ordinary 
made  the  stronger  of  the  birdlings  bold  to  ven- 
ture, and  with  a  sudden  leap  he  made  the  plunge. 
The  untried  wings  worked,  the  body  found  it- 
self sustained  in  air,  and  with  a  graceful  slant 
from  the  roof  of  the  cottage  toward  the  bottom 
of  the  hill,  he  landed  ten  rods  away.  The  new 
life  had  begun.  For  two  days  the  family  cares 
were  divided  between  the  more  stalwart  birdling 
already  in  the  thicket  and  the  weaker  one,  who 
did  not  dare  trust  himself  away  from  the  shel- 
tered nest ;  but  the  third  day  he,  too,  was  gone. 
A  home  built  in  confidence,  sustained  in  fear, 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  BIRD'S  NEST     219 

had  reached  its  triumph.  A  new  creative  impulse 
had  come  to  fruition,  and  two  more  doves  were 
out  in  the  world.  A  new  peace  had  come  into 
the  hearts  of  parent  birds.  And  the  landlord, 
whose  rights  had  never  been  recognized  by  the 
bird  tenants,  was  left  with  a  thoughtfulness  which 
perchance  might  ripen  into  a  sermon. 

I  have  already  spoken  of  the  more  apparent 
lessons  of  bird  life.  Let  me  now  try  to  count 
two  or  three  of  the  less  obvious  lessons  which 
have  a  profound  significance,  and  which,  if  real- 
ized, cause  the  facts  already  mentioned  to  cease 
to  be  superficial  and  become  cubical ;  or,  better 
still,  spherical. 

First,  what  of  the  fear  which  is  the  almost 
universal  attendant  of  bird  life?  That  foolish 
little  pigeon  sat  there  day  after  day  with  her 
heart  in  her  mouth  in  fear  of  a  friend.  On  a 
hill  that  is  friendly  to  birds,  where  the  gun  is 
not  allowed  and  the  bird  song  is  welcome  music, 
these  birds  trembled,  were  eternally  vigilant,  alert 
to  every  noise,  startled  by  the  crackling  twigs, 
fearful  of  chirp  and  whistle.  Foolish  bird,  we 
say ;  but  in  saying  it  we  demonstrate  our  own 
foolishness,  for  a  little  scientific  knowledge  shows 
that  the  timidity  of  the  bird  is  most  pathetically 


22O 


justified  by  sad  experiences.  "  Eternal  vigilance 
is  the  price  of  liberty  "  is  a  maxim  immeasurably 
more  true  in  the  kingdom  of  birds  than  in  the 
kingdom  of  man,  for  the  bird  is  literally  harassed 
by  foes  from  within  and  without.  The  number 
of  its  enemies,  the  nature  of  its  dangers,  the  ever- 
threatening  army  that  surrounds  it,  present  to  the 
thoughtful  such  a  grim  array  of  dangers  as  makes 
the  little  life  seem  tragic.  All  this  puts  tears 
into  the  most  cheerful  song  and  blood-stains 
upon  the  most  delicately  shaded  wing.  Darwin's 
phrase,  "  the  struggle  for  existence,"  receives  its 
highest  illustration  in  the  realm  of  bird  life.  For 
a  million  years,  more  or  less,  the  birds  have  been 
under  fire.  They  have  had  to  live  beset  by  foes. 
The  enemy  has  been  before  and  behind.  In 
every  one  of  these  million  years  hundreds  and 
thousands  of  birds  have  gone  down  in  the  battle. 
So  sharp  is  the  struggle,  so  desperate  the  con- 
test, that  one  wayward  tint  upon  the  wing  thus 
made  too  conspicuous  reveals  the  bird  to  some 
relentless  enemy.  A  few  lines  short  in  the 
length  of  the  pinion  feathers  yields  it  up  to 
the  pursuing  enemy;  if  the  bill  is  too  long  or 
the  claw  too  short,  down  goes  the  bird.  My 
glass  brought  out  the  marvellous  symmetry  of 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  BIRD'S  NEST     221 

the  dove,  so  rounded  and  delicately  moulded. 
How  modest  and  well-chosen  was  the  Quaker- 
like  garb,  how  quaint  the  little  black  marking 
on  the  side  of  the  head. 

It  is  a  grim  reflection  that  that  quiet  color 
has  been  brought  about  by  the  awful  selec- 
tions of  nature ;  the  more  glaring  tints,  the 
less  obscuring  variations  have  fallen  out  by 
the  way,  have  gone  down  the  road  of  death. 
Why  do  the  doves  always  light  on  the  dead 
branches  ?  Why  do  they  sit  so  statuesque  and 
still  ?  Because  nature,  through  severe  discipline, 
has  taught  them  that  safety  lies  in  the  incon- 
spicuous position  and  attitude,  or,  to  put  it  in 
its  grimmest  form,  nature  has  killed  off  all  those 
not  protected  by  such  mimicry.  The  mournful 
call  that  fell  upon  my  ear  was  the  love-note  of 
the  loyal  husband,  who,  by  a  marvellous  ventrilo- 
quism, threw  the  sound  of  his  "  Coo-oo-oo  "  out 
into  space  so  that  that  which  was  uttered  within  a 
few  feet  from  my  ears  seemed  to  come  from  some 
indefinite  place  rods  away.  This  again  was  a 
hard-bought  deception  wrought  out  of  bitter  ex- 
perience, a  high  trick  taught  by  nature  to  the 
bird  that  would  survive ;  not  that  the  birds 
change  their  notes,  but  that  the  wayward  note, 


222  JESS 

like  flaring  colors,  brings  death,  and  the  indefinite 
sound,  like  the  undecided  color,  brings  safety. 
There  are  more  bird  calls  than  bird  songs,  and 
the  "  calls  "  are  most  often  warning  notes,  signals 
of  danger,  the  halloos  of  comrades  when  the  ranks 
are  broken,  or  the  reassuring  whistle  which  one 
wayfarer  gives  to  another  as  they  travel  in  the 
dark. 

One  day  on  the  front  porch,  fifteen  feet  above 
the  ground,  wriggling  through  the  ivy  along  the 
trellis-work,  I  saw  a  "  blue  racer,"  three  and  a  half 
feet  long,  climbing  up  toward  our  doves'  nest, 
doubtless  after  the  eggs  there  deposited.  Had 
the  dreaded  "  landlord "  not  interfered,  these 
mourning  doves  would  have  remained  childless, 
notwithstanding  their  courage.  Eden  would  have 
again  been  invaded  by  a  snake,  and  my  bird 
Adam  and  Eve  would  have  been  homeless. 

On  our  back  porch,  over  the  door,  I  found  on 
my  arrival  what  seemed  to  be  a  happy  family  of 
Phebe  birds,  the  young  being  well  under  way. 
These  peasant  birds,  with  drab  coats  and  ashen 
vests,  high  shoulders  and  somewhat  unkempt 
heads,  were  as  exquisite  in  their  home-making  as 
the  doves  were  slovenly.  They  had  an  ideal 
cottage  nest  of  compacted  mud  lined  with  softest 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  BIRD'S  NEST     223 

down.  The  nest  was  well  sheltered  from  the 
weather,  and  all  signs  indicated  prosperity.  The 
Phebe  bird  is  much  reconciled  to  humanity.  It 
is  willing  to  go  shares  with  man  and  anxious  to 
enjoy  the  fruits  of  civilization.  Insect  life  was 
abundant,  father  and  mother  bird  were  diligent. 
Five  hungry  birdlings  with  capacious  mouths 
kept  them  busy  from  daylight  to  dark.  But  one 
morning  I  discovered  the  five  little  birdlings  dead, 
a  wholesale  tragedy  of  the  nest.  This  thrifty 
family  had  been  the  victims  of  the  merciless  par- 
asites which  the  books  tell  us  cloud  the  life  of 
this  diligent  peasant  bird  from  the  Atlantic  to  the 
Pacific.  Everywhere  it  is  beset  with  a  persistent, 
parasitic  insect  which  oftentimes  renders  the  nest 
uninhabitable  and  compels  the  parents  to  build 
anew.  These  little  white  lice  were  too  numerous 
to  count,  and  the  scene  of  the  tragedy  had  to  be 
flooded  with  the  hose  in  order  to  rid  the  porch  of 
the  presence  of  the  pest.  The  snake  and  para- 
sites suggest  the  bird  foes  innumerable  which 
were  in  the  world  before  man  came,  and  which 
pursue  their  game  independently  of  man  and  in 
spite  of  man's  protection. 

Think   again    of  the   awful    battle    our   birds 
fight   with    the    climate,    and    their    magnificent 


224  JESS 

triumph  over  nature's  inhospitality,  as  repre- 
sented by  bird  migrations.  The  mourning  doves 
that  in  July  feed  their  young  in  Wisconsin  will 
probably  spend  their  winter  in  Mexico.  Some 
of  their  neighbors  will  cross  over  to  Cuba,  while 
the  snipe  and  plover  that  we  saw  fishing  along 
the  banks  of  the  Wisconsin  in  August  had 
hatched  their  young  within  the  Arctic  circle  in 
May  and  June,  and  by  December  they  may  be 
fishing  along  the  coasts  of  Patagonia.  Thus 
twice  a  year  the  great  feathered  columns  move, 
first  southward  and  then  northward.  The  beau- 
tiful Baltimore  oriole  in  his  bright  scarlet  coat 
left  the  pretty  nest,  which  we  used  for  decorat- 
ing our  "  Emerson  pavilion  "  on  Tower  Hill, 
and  is  now  in  more  modest  yellow  on  his  way  to 
Central  America.  If  nothing  befalls  him  he  will 
be  back  next  spring  to  greet  us  again.  But 
many  will  fall  out  by  the  way.  Many  will  lit- 
erally lose  their  way  when,  affrighted  by  the  noise 
of  the  storm  or  blown  by  the  violence  of  the  wind 
out  of  hearing  of  the  company's  call,  they  miss 
the  bugle  notes  of  the  leader.  There  is  method 
in  the  flitting  of  the  silliest  of  the  birds  in  their 
migratory  days.  The  timid  and  weak  of  wing 
seek  the  shelter  of  the  woods,  lie  low  during  the 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  BIRD'S  NEST     225 

daytime  when  their  enemies  are  abroad,  and  do 
their  travelling  by  night.  When  fogs  are  heavy 
and  storms  obscure  the  sky,  they  fly  low ;  in 
clear  nights  they  rise  higher.  It  is  impossible  to 
realize  the  extent  of  these  migrations.  Countless 
are  these  obedient  children  of  nature,  fleeing 
from  its  forces  that  they  may  themselves  become 
its  exponents.  Chapman,  in  his  "  Bird  Life," 
relates  that  on  the  night  of  September  3,  1887, 
he  and  a  friend  in  New  Jersey  counted  no  less 
than  two  hundred  and  sixty-two  birds  between  the 
hours  of  eight  and  eleven  in  the  evening,  flying 
across  the  angle  of  vision  of  a  six-and-a-half-inch 
equatorial  telescope.  This  habit  of  being  borne 
southward  on  the  crest  of  the  winter  storm,  it  is 
presumed  by  scientists,  was  first  taught  the  birds 
by  the  severities  of  the  glacial  experiences.  But, 
oh,  the  cost  of  this  migration  !  After  one  night 
of  storm  in  the  height  of  the  migratory  season 
fourteen  hundred  birds  were  picked  up  at  the 
base  of  the  Bartholdi  statue  in  New  York  har- 
bor. In  the  terror  of  that  midnight  storm  the 
poor  birds  had  fled  toward  the  light  and  beaten 
themselves  to  death  against  the  delusive  glass  that 
seemed  to  promise  succor. 

In  the  face   of  this,  what  have  we  to  say  of 


226  JESS 

that  New  Testament  providence  of  which  it  is 
said  that  not  a  sparrow  falls  without  the  Father's 
notice  ?  It  is  providence  still,  but  providence 
with  an  aim  further  along.  It  is  not  provi- 
dence fitting  itself  to  the  needs  of  the  sparrow, 
but  the  sparrow  painfully  fitting  itself  to  the 
great  order  of  providence.  This  new  reading  of 
the  old  text  may  well  represent  the  new  version 
of  the  old  gospel.  Here  is  the  pith  of  the  lesson 
I  bring  from  the  bird's  nest  on  the  porch.  The 
old  theology  sought  to  reconcile  God  to  man. 
The  new  theology  seeks  to  reconcile  man  to 
God,  to  fit  his  life  into  the  complexities  of  the 
universe  in  such  a  way  that  he  may  become  a 
part  of  the  divine  order,  himself  an  embodiment 
of  that  infinite  law  which  is  friendly  to  the  ex- 
cellent, and  hospitable  to  the  competent.  In 
the  great  process  of  man's  reconciliation  to  the 
ways  of  God,  man  fitting  himself  into  the  uni- 
verse, the  law  of  sacrifice  is  made  still  more 
manifest.  Here  is  the  sacrifice,  not  of  the  most 
competent,  but  of  the  most  incompetent.  Not 
the  sacrifice  of  one  faultless  child  of  the  infinite, 
but  the  sacrifice  of  countless  imperfect  products 
of  the  finite  must  pay  the  penalty  and  pave  the 
way  for  that  redemption  which  makes  for  prog- 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  BIRD'S  NEST     227 

ress  and  the  eternal  life.  I  have  told  how  my 
glass  revealed  the  ever  buoyant  life  of  the  bird, 
as  with  restless  wing  and  claw  he  scaled  the  tree- 
trunks,  flitted  among  the  leaves,  hopped  upon 
the  ground,  apparently  in  wanton  joy ;  but  a 
closer  investigation  and  a  more  sympathetic  sci- 
ence showed  that  the  inspiration  lay  in  the  hun- 
gry stomach,  the  voracity  of  the  bird  in  search 
of  food  for  himself  and  his  young  ones.  One 
thousand  and  twenty-one  eggs  of  the  canker- 
worm  have  been  counted  in  the  stomach  of  a 
chickadee  at  one  time.  Professor  Forbes,  the 
state  entomologist  of  Illinois,  has  published 
startling  figures  to  show  that  the  weakest  of 
the  birds  must  work  from  morning  till  night 
to  secure  food  enough  for  himself  and  his  young 
ones,  and  that  in  securing  it  he  rids  our  orchards 
of  their  insect  pests  and  makes  our  gardens 
possible.  Even  the  slow-going  owl,  Mr.  Chap- 
man estimates,  devours  at  least  a  thousand  field- 
mice  a  year,  producing  a  minimum  profit  to  the 
farmer  of  at  least  twenty  dollars  per  owl. 

Let  us  hold  on  to  the  providence  of  the  bird, 
"  hard,  cruel,  relentless  providence "  though  it 
may  seem.  For,  after  all,  it  is  the  providence 
that  perfects  bird  life,  that  develops  the  song  of 


228  JESS 

the  whip-poor-will  and  the  holy  anthem  of  the 
hermit-thrush,  that  fills  our  fields  with  buoyant 
life,  that  makes  radiant  the  hillslope  with  color, 
the  providence  that  puts  life  on  its  mettle  and 
makes  it  rise  to  the  best  or  get  out  of  the  way. 
This  providence  of  the  bird  we  see  beginning 
away  back  and  away  down  below  with  the  lower 
animal  life,  simple,  clumsy,  grotesque,  and  we  see 
it  squeezing,  crowding,  pinching,  propelling,  allur- 
ing, at  last  inspiring  life  into  its  myriad  forms  of 
glory  and  of  ecstasy,  each  stage  differing  from  the 
other  and  each  more  glorious  than  the  last,  each 
marking  an  advance  upon  the  highway  of  being. 
In  the  bird  the  story  of  evolution  becomes  lyric. 
Bird  life  begins  in  the  cold-blooded  life  of  the 
quadruped  away  down  in  the  Jurassic  rocks.  In 
the  Bavarian  quarries  there  was  found  the  fossil 
of  a  reptile-like  bird  with  teeth  in  its  jaws,  wings 
too  weak  for  flight,  and  feathers  strung  along 
a  tail-like  extension  of  the  vertebrae.  Up  from 
that  connecting  link  we  may  pass  into  the  almost 
endless  variety  of  bird  life  as  we  find  it  to-day. 
Aristotle,  in  the  third  century  B.C.,  counted 
in  his  Natural  History  some  one  hundred  and 
seventy  different  kinds  of  birds.  The  latest  text- 
book tells  us  that  upward  of  thirteen  thousand 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  BIRD'S  NEST     229 

species  are  known  to  science,  and  these  reach 
from  the  humming-bird  to  the  eagle ;  from  the 
frigate-bird,  that  can  cross  the  ocean  on  its  wings 
and  live  for  weeks  in  the  air,  to  the  penguin  that 
has  been  called  the  feathered  porpoise ;  from  the 
ostrich,  that  can  outspeed  a  horse  and  race  across 
a  desert,  to  the  robin,  whose  only  walk  is  a  hop. 
Our  mourning  dove  represents  one  of  three  hun- 
dred known  species  of  pigeons,  only  twelve  of 
which  are  fitted  into  North  American  life.  This 
family  of  the  Columbidae  has  been  divided  and 
subdivided,  which  means  that  the  dove  has  been 
adjusted  and  readjusted  to  its  surroundings.  Some 
live  among  the  trees,  others  are  ground  birds. 
Some  are  wont  to  establish  great  bird  cities  in  the 
forests,  others  fly  alone  in  the  hedges.  All  of 
them  would  seem  to  be  on  the  advance  line  of 
the  feathered  kingdom  in  many  respects.  They 
alone  can  drink  without  raising  their  bills  to 
swallow.  They  alone  among  birds  verge  on  the 
line  of  mammals,  for  they  feed  their  young  with 
"  pigeon-milk,"  the  partially  digested  food  regur- 
gitated out  of  the  stomach.  This  we  saw  on 
Westhope  porch,  —  the  two  birdlings  with  their 
bills  deep  set  into  the  mother's  bill,  receiving 
their  food  from  the  stomach  of  the  parent  bird. 


230  JESS 

I  have  but  crudely  hinted  at  the  providence  of 
the  bird's  nest,  but  the  sooner  we  accept  this  in- 
terpretation revealed  in  providence  for  man,  the 
more  religious  we  shall  become.  The  ultimate 
purpose  of  God  is  life,  —  more  abundant,  varied, 
exultant,  triumphant  life.  The  universe  will  not 
cosset  dove  or  man.  Sparrow  and  hero  are  worth 
to  God  just  what  they  are  worth  to  truth  and 
beauty,  reality  and  right,  and  that  only.  Man  is 
conserved  as  the  dove  is,  in  so  far  as  he  conforms 
to  the  definite  behests  of  the  universe.  The  in- 
adequate birds,  ill-adjusted  to  time  and  place, 
weak  of  wing  where  strong  wing  was  necessary, 
short  of  bill  where  the  food  was  to  be  obtained 
by  deep  probing,  have  fallen  out  by  the  way. 
They  have  been  destroyed,  not  by  a  cruel,  but  by 
a  benignant  providence.  They  have  been  used 
as  rounds  in  the  ladder  of  life.  They  have  lived 
their  lives  not  in  vain ;  rather  have  they  served 
life  grandly  in  their  failures.  Out  of  this  grim 
struggle  for  existence  finally  comes  the  gospel  of 
trust  and  faith. 

Do  you  say  this  religion  of  the  bird's  nest 
is  harsh,  hard,  unpitying,  uninspiring  ?  The 
contrary  is  true.  The  turtle-dove  from  time  im- 
memorial has  been  a  synonym  of  love.  Her 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  BIRD'S  NEST     231 

song  has  been  caught  up  by  the  human  heart  and 
rendered  into  the  sweetness  of  human  affections. 
According  to  the  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  the 
oldest  picture  now  in  the  possession  of  man  is  an 
old  Egyptian  fresco  of  birds,  dating  back  three 
thousand  years  before  Christ.  Shakespeare  has 
six  hundred  allusions  to  birds.  Take  the  bird 
out  of  English  literature,  and  it  is  like  taking 
flowers  out  of  the  landscape.  The  Bible  is  musi- 
cal with  bird  notes.  Shaler,  in  his  work  on 
"  Domestication  of  Animals,"  states  that  the 
breeding  of  pigeons  was  begun  in  India  over  two 
thousand  years  ago  ;  that  man  has  labored  for 
a  thousand  years  to  gratify  his  fancy  in  the  de- 
velopment of  pigeon  varieties.  Darwin,  in  his 
great  work,  draws  some  of  his  most  ingenious 
arguments  from  the  work  of  the  pigeon-fancier, 
who  has  developed  hundreds  of  varieties  and 
peculiarities  from  the  original  rock-pigeon.  But 
nature  began  her  work  long  before  man  began 
his.  The  whole  pigeon  family  are  monogamic 
for  life.  The  pigeon-fancier  can  count  as  com- 
pletely on  the  father  as  on  the  mother  of  his 
birds.  The  young  bird  is  hatched  as  helpless  as 
the  human  infant,  and  requires  the  care  of  both 
parents  to  bring  it  to  maturity.  What  does  all 


232  JESS 

this  mean  if  not  that  the  crush  and  grind  of  life 
is  toward  tenderness  ;  that  love  is  not  the  airy 
effervescence  of  human  sentiment,  but  that  it 
is  the  very  wine  of  nature  slowly  expressed  by 
the  press  of  life?  The  "grind  of  fate"  is  our 
unphilosophic  phrase  for  the  growing  revelations 
of  love.  The  creative  God  gives  the  parable  of 
human  life  in  the  bird's  nest,  and  shows  that  in- 
dolence and  selfishness,  insincerity  and  artificiality 
are  doomed.  The  eternal  decree  of  the  Almighty 
is  against  them  ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  pa- 
tience, diligence,  loyalty,  and  love  are  not  only 
sanctioned  but  created  by  the  travail  of  nature 
and  the  unfolding  of  life. 

Somewhere  in  the  religion  of  the  bird's  nest 
enters  a  human  element.  Man  enters  for  a  time, 
and  interferes,  blunders,  defeats,  thwarts ;  but 
even  man  must  learn,  as  the  dove  has  learned, 
that  no  providence  fits  his  mistakes,  no  provi- 
dence will  correct  his  blunders,  and  no  provi- 
dence will  save  him  from  his  own  imperfections, 
but  that  he  must  fit  into  providence ;  he  must 
make  common  cause  with  nature;  discover  the 
way  of  life,  and  walk  therein.  Then,  and  not 
till  then,  will  he  partake  of  the  ecstasy  of  the 
bird  and  sing  his  song ;  then  he  will  know  the 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  BIRD'S  NEST     233 

faith  of  the  bird  who  sits  patient  and  unquestion- 
ing weeks  upon  the  egg  until  life  comes  forth 
more  abundantly. 

Man's  intrusion  is  painfully  discoverable  in 
the  story  of  the  dove.  The  pigeon,  that 
once  flew  in  great  flocks  and  settled  in  mighty 
colonies,  is  almost  an  extinct  bird.  Wilson, 
in  1808,  estimated  that  there  were  over  two 
billion  pigeons  in  a  flock  which  he  observed 
near  Frankfort,  Kentucky.  The  last  pigeon 
"  nesting  "  in  Michigan  on  a  large  scale  was  in 
1 88 1.  It  covered  a  strip  of  country  some  eight 
miles  long,  while  four  years  before  that  there 
was  a  "  nesting  "  that  covered  a  territory  twenty- 
eight  miles  long,  averaging  three  or  four  miles 
in  width.  Now  the  pigeon  has  become  so  rare 
that  Chapman  says  he  has  seen  but  one  pair  in 
the  Atlantic  states  for  sixteen  years.  These 
birds  have  vanished  under  the  hunting  and  snar- 
ing hand  of  intrusive  man.  Our  mourning  dove 
remains  to  preach  us  our  sermon  because  of  its 
solitary  habits. 

But  there  comes  a  time  in  the  development  of 
man  when  he  makes  friends  with  the  dove  and 
becomes  neighborly  to  the  pigeon.  Then  it  is 
that  "  nature,  red  in  tooth  and  claw "  on  the 


234  JESS 

lower  levels,  blooms  into  love,  bursts  into  a  co- 
operation that  crosses  the  distinctions  of  species 
and  coordinates  all  the  forces  of  life,  bringing 
them  into  that  higher  harmony  which  will  make 
this  life  beautiful,  this  earth  a  heaven,  and  all 
nature  ethical. 

I  come  from  the  hillsides  of  Wisconsin  with 
the  music  of  the  birds  in  my  ears,  with  a  sense 
of  the  struggle  in  nature  resting  upon  my  heart, 
and  with  a  renewed  conviction  that  there  is  no 
religion  that  is  not  rational,  that  there  is  no  last- 
ing piety  which  does  not  rest  upon  the  great 
affirmations  of  nature,  and  that  the  ultimate  faith 
of  man  must  rest  in  the  great  truths  of  science. 
The  only  religion  that  is  dead  or  dying  is  the 
arbitrary  religion  of  miracle,  of"  chosen  "  peoples, 
of  special  sanctities.  In  other  words,  the  great 
negations  that  are  paralyzing  the  religious  world 
to-day  are  those  which  deny  the  unity  of  nature, 
the  community  of  races,  the  integrity  of  history, 
in  the  interest  of  some  special  scheme,  some  par- 
tial redemption,  some  theological  test-line,  some 
sectarian  success.  He  deals  in  negations  who 
refuses  to  listen  to  the  growing  revelations  of 
science.  That  church  is  negative  that  refuses  to 
profit  by  the  experience  of  the  race,  and  halts 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  BIRD'S  NEST     235 

along    the    highway    over    which    travel     human 
thought  and  human  love. 

I  have  been  up  under  the  trees.  I  have  again 
been  watching  the  river.  I  have  ridden  through 
hundreds  of  miles  of  country  roads,  and  nowhere 
in  nature  have  I  found  a  line  between  orthodoxy 
and  heterodoxy.  I  have  found  no  place  to  lay 
the  foundation  of  a  denominational  church,  and 
no  landmarks  by  which  to  survey  the  boundary- 
line  between  sect  and  sect,  creed  and  creed.  No- 
where have  I  seen  any  indication  that  the  God 
of  the  stars,  of  the  sun  and  the  moon,  is  partial 
to  Methodist  statistics,  Presbyterian  respectabil- 
ity and  wealth,  Episcopalian  style,  or  Unitarian 
boast  of  culture.  There  is  more  reality  in  the 
"  Tu-who-oo "  of  the  owl  than  in  the  purse- 
proud  boast  of  preacher  and  layman  who  point  to 
their  great  churches,  munificent  salaries,  crowded 
audiences,  or  accumulated  fortunes  as  evidence  of 
the  divine  sanction,  or  as  an  argument  for  the 
true  faith.  In  the  eye  of  the  All-seeing  one  the 
pathetic  failures  of  the  Phebe  bird  have  more 
spiritual  potency  and  ethical  significance  than  the 
strident  boasts  of  the  "  successful "  cat-bird, 
though  he  be  the  most  orthodox  of  birds.  His 
conspicuous  blue  marks  him  afar  as  a  confident 


236  JESS 

Calvinist,  whose  "  election  "  and  "  calling "  are 
sure.  He  is  certain  that  he  is  God's  accepted 
bird.  Let  us  have  done  with  arbitrary  distinc- 
tions. Let  us  apply  ourselves  to  the  slow,  hard 
tasks  of  God,  the  tasks  of  character-building. 
We  must  begin  where  the  bird  leaves  off,  and 
take  the  battle  from  the  physical  to  the  spiritual 
realm.  It  is  for  us  to  bear  the  banners  forward 
so  that  God's  creative  line  will  no  longer  be 
where  lie  contending  physical  forms  and  material 
organs,  but  where  the  moulds  of  ideas,  spiritual 
instrumentalities,  social  organisms,  are  being  de- 
veloped. On  these  lines  we  may  work  here  as 
there  with  that  Power  that  has  "  covenanted  with 
the  beasts  of  the  field  and  the  fowls  of  heaven." 
We  may  take  up  the  battle  where  the  creeping 
things  have  laid  it  down,  realizing  in  the  splendid 
phrase  of  the  old  Bible  that  we,  like  them,  are 
"  betrothed  unto  this  mighty  Power  forever." 


NEAR  TO  THE  HEART  OF 
NATURE 


EACH   IN   HIS   OWN   TONGUE 

A  fire-mist  and  a  planet, 

A  crystal  and  a  cell,  — 

A  jelly-fish  and  a  saurian, 

And  caves  where  the  cave  men  dwell; 

Then  a  sense  of  law  and  beauty 

And  a  face  turned  from  the  clod,  — 

Some  call  it  Evolution, 

And  others  call  it  God. 

A  haze  on  the  far  horizon,  — 
The  infinite,  tender  sky,  — 
The  ripe,  rich  tint  of  the  corn-fields, 
And  the  wild  geese  sailing  high,  — 
And  all  over  upland  and  lowland 
The  charm  of  the  golden-rod,  — 
Some  of  us  call  it  Autumn, 
And  others  call  it  God. 

238 


Like  tides  on  a  crescent  sea-beach 
When  the  moon  is  new  and  thin, 
Into  our  hearts  high  yearnings 
Come  welling  and  surging  in,  — 
Come  from  the  mystic  ocean, 
Whose  rim  no  foot  has  trod,  — 
Some  of  us  call  it  longing, 
And  others  call  it  God. 

A  picket  frozen  on  duty,  — 

A  mother  starved  for  her  brood,  — 

Socrates  drinking  the  hemlock, 

And  Jesus  on  the  rood  ; 

And  millions  who,  humble  and  nameless, 

The  straight,  hard  pathway  trod,  — 

Some  call  it  consecration, 

And  others  call  it  God. 

WILLIAM  HERBERT  CARRUTH. 


239 


NEAR  TO  THE  HEART  OF 
NATURE 

A  STRIKING  transition  is  that  from  the  solitude 
of  the  riverside  to  the  crush  of  the  street.  Tower 
Hill  in  its  quiet  isolation  is  far  removed  from 
Chicago  in  its  strain  and  its  hurry.  The  whole 
diameter  of  human  life  would  seem  to  separate 
the  solitude  of  the  one  from  the  society  of  the 
other.  The  haunts  of  the  whip-poor-will,  the 
home  of  the  blue-jay  and  the  tree- toad  are  far  re- 
moved from  the  City  Hall,  the  Board  of  Trade 
and  the  Public  Library.  There  would  seem  to 
be  nothing  but  antagonism  between  the  life  which 
rises  to  its  maximum  hilarity  and  activity  under 
the  electric  light  that  makes  night  more  attractive 
than  day,  and  the  life  that  in  the  main  does  not 
need  the  help  of  a  lantern  to  see  it  to  bed. 

The  common  way  of  characterizing  this  distance 
is  to  call  one  nature  and  the  other  human  nature. 
On  Tower  Hill  it  was  "  things."  In  Chicago  it 
is  "  folks."  For  the  time  being  I  admit  this  dis- 
tinction. I  will  accept  for  the  present  the  poet's 

140 


NEAR    TO    THE    HEART   OF   NATURE     241 

phrase,  "  near  to  the  heart  of  nature,"  and  try  to 
report  a  few  lessons  from  the  woods,  this  trysting- 
place  for  lovers,  this  enchanted  land  for  artists, 
this  paradise  for  overstrained  brain  and  weary 
nerve. 

Four  or  five  hundred  miles  on  horseback,  for 
the  most  part  solitary  riding ;  sixty  miles  in  a 
skifF  down  the  broad  Wisconsin ;  two  months' 
occupancy  of  a  room  on  a  hillslope  which  per- 
mitted me,  like  a  bird  on  its  nest,  to  sleep  and 
wake  with  the  far  horizon-line  before  the  eye ;  a 
bewitching  picture  of  hill  and  valley,  wood  and 
field ;  water  enough  to  mimic  the  sky  above,  to 
carry  constellations  in  its  bosom  at  night,  to  give 
back  the  sun  by  day,  awaiting  each  awakening  ; 
all  these  ought  to  leave  some  impressions  worth 
reporting. 

The  first  help  I  found  "  near  to  the  heart  of 
nature  "  was  the  sedative  that  allays  the  spiritual 
fever  of  our  time  and  city.  Nature,  on  the  sur- 
face at  least,  is  dispassionate.  It  is  very  deliberate. 
Even  in  the  intense  temperature  of  the  hottest 
days,  nature  endures  without  scolding.  The 
leaves  droop,  the  grass-blades  wilt,  the  birds  keep 
still ;  but  there  is  no  petulant  complaint  about  it. 
And  the  same  is  true  of  the  other  extreme.  For 


242  JESS 

the  most  part  the  realms  of  plant  and  animal  life 
take  the  chills  of  winter  stoically.  The  exhausted 
leaf  floats  gently  to  its  death.  The  birds,  ad- 
monished by  the  early  frost,  one  by  one  steal 
quietly  away  and  keep  ahead  of  the  snow-line  in 
their  southern  march,  while  those  that  remain  tuck 
themselves  up  in  their  winter  resolutions,  which 
are  perhaps  better  protection  than  the  feathers 
encircling  the  fluffy  ball  of  life.  It  remains  for 
man  to  fret  and  scold  ;  it  remains,  probably,  for 
man  to  discover  the  rebellious  accomplishment  of 
suicide.  Tears  are  well-nigh  a  human  product. 
The  bark  of  a  dog,  scientists  tell  us,  is  the  result 
of  domestication.  Even  the  civilized  dog  loses 
his  power  of  barking,  forgets  his  vociferous  power 
of  protest,  after  about  thirty  years  of  solitude. 
To  be  "  near  to  the  heart  of  nature  "  is  to  be  far 
away  from  the  friction,  the  contentions,  the  poison- 
ing jealousies  of  life.  The  cultivated  mind  feels 
deeper  than  it  can  reason,  and  it  is  hard  to  analyze 
the  charm  of  the  country ;  but  perhaps  one  large 
element  lies  in  the  peace  which  seems  to  brood 
over  field  and  forest,  in  the  stability  of  elm  and 
oak,  in  the  patience  of  the  pine.  The  wild  rose 
has  but  a  single  whorl  of  petals,  but  it  is  fragrant 
notwithstanding.  It  does  not  grow  pale  with 


NEAR   TO   THE    HEART   OF   NATURE     243 

jealousy  because  it  cannot  emulate  the  queen  of 
the  garden  in  her  many  and  vari-colored  robes. 
It  goes  on  shedding  its  fragrance  on  desert  air  as 
contentedly  as  though  its  blushes  were  seen  in  a 
city  park. 

But  the  deliberation  of  nature  is  balanced  by 
its  diligence ;  by  that  persistency  that  is  never 
balked  or  discouraged,  but  pushes  toward  some 
far-off  unknown  goal  with  energy  unfaltering. 
The  hills  work  on  long  lines.  The  achievements 
of  the  marsh  are  the  results  of  investments  far 
back,  and  their  worth  will  be  determined  only  in 
the  perspective  of  the  long  eras  of  time  to  come. 
Tower  Hill,  on  the  side  of  which  Westhope  cot- 
tage is  built,  owes  its  name  to  what  was  once  a 
proud  industry.  Away  back  in  the  thirties,  Yan- 
kee energy  and  eastern  capital  established  what 
was  for  the  time  and  place  a  great  enterprise. 
They  bored  the  hill,  and  into  the  shaft,  two  hun- 
dred feet  deep,  they  dropped  the  molten  lead, 
thereby  changing  it  to  shot.  Westhope  looks 
out  upon  the  site  of  a  deserted  village ;  wharves, 
warehouses,  shops,  stores,  hotels,  pioneer  homes, 
all  are  gone ;  but  the  old  river  keeps  on  her 
course.  The  pines  that  were  saplings  in  the  way 
of  the  territorial  enterprise  have  persisted,  and 


244  JESS 

now  their  high  heads  bow  patiently    before    the 
storm. 

So  is  it  everywhere.  The  fable  of  the  tortoise 
and  the  hare  is  entirely  inadequate  to  represent 
the  methods  of  nature.  The  tortoise  is  too 
swift,  his  goal  is  too  easy  to  reach.  He  is  not  a 
fitting  symbol  of  that  nature  which  holds  the 
"  unhasting  and  unresting  stars,"  as  Goethe  calls 
them,  apparently  in  the  same  field  they  occupied 
when  the  far-off  shepherds  of  India  first  tried  to 
count  them,  learned  their  location,  and  gave  them 
names.  The  fern  in  the  mossy  glen  may  call 
forth  the  adjectives  "dainty,"  "delicate,"  "ex- 
quisite," but  the  glen  itself,  with  its  depth  of 
leafy  mould,  its  sculptured  water-ways,  its  sand 
battlements  on  either  side,  awakens  emotions 
which  require,  not  the  terms  of  art,  but  the  terms 
of  religion,  to  express,  for  it  suggests  unmeas- 
ured cycles  of  time,  unwearied  forces  of  wind  and 
water,  frost  and  tide,  which  dwarf  the  greatest 
achievements  of  armies  and  reduce  human  chro- 
nology to  the  passing  sunshine  and  shadow  of  a 
day.  The  clay  that  clings  to  the  wagon-wheel  is 
battered  granite,  the  sand  that  checks  and  tricks 
the  river  in  its  search  for  the  sea  is  crushed 
quartz,  and  nature  had  no  mills  with  which  to 


NEAR   TO   THE    HEART   OF    NATURE      245 

grind  the  one  or  crush  the  other  save  the  persist- 
ent teasing  of  the  wind,  the  tireless  insinuations 
of  the  raindrops,  and  the  invisible  chisel  of  the 
frost.  Realizing  this,  there  is  in  the  mud-puddle 
and  the  sand-bar  a  grandeur  which  the  Allegha- 
nies  and  the  Rockies  emphasize  only  by  the  law 
of  accumulation,  not  by  the  law  of  difference.  It 
is  only  a  question  of  degree. 

It  was  easy  to  grow  sentimental  over  nature  as 
we  floated  along  on  the  quiet  bosom  of  the  sunlit 
river,  looking  from  that  low  level  out  to  the  well- 
moulded  hills,  over  which  embroidered  rugs  of 
waving  tree-tops  were  flung,  and  rinding  new 
decorative  beauty  in  the  sedges  along  the  banks. 
The  music  of  the  lute  fitted  into  the  song  of 
nature  as  we  noted  the  graceful  swing  of  the 
willows  and  became  familiar  with  the  long-legged 
cranes  quietly  pursuing  their  fishing  industries, 
wading  through  the  shallow  waters  that  fringed 
the  sand-bars,  too  much  surprised  at  the  human 
intrusion  of  their  neglected  water-ways  to  take 
immediate  flight.  It  seemed  the  place  for  artists 
and  poets,  and  one  pitied  the  excited  seekers  for 
rest,  the  frequenters  of  the  "  resorts,"  where 
nature  is  appreciated  chiefly  as  a  background  for 
city  costumes.  Even  the  afternoon  shower  that 


246  JESS 

drove  us  to  the  bank  to  find  partial  shelter  under 
the  roof  of  leaves  seemed  quite  conducive  to 
poetry.  There  was  music  in  the  patter  on  the 
green  shingle  above  mingling  with  the  splashing 
of  the  big  drops  in  the  water.  There  was  a 
depth  of  atmosphere,  a  play  of  shadows,  which 
gave  mystical  interpretations  to  bluff,  marsh,  and 
forest.  So  far  nature  might  still  be  voted  friendly ; 
her  sermon  might  still  be  preached  under  the 
three  heads,  serenity,  patience,  sublimity. 

But  when,  two  hours  later,  the  dark  thunder- 
cloud before  us  spread  into  an  ominous  canopy 
of  blackness,  bringing  the  day  to  an  untimely  end 
while  our  craft  was  still  three  miles  away  from  the 
village  where  we  had  planned  to  find  rest  and 
shelter  for  the  night,  poesy  fled  before  the  grim 
advance  of  fact,  and  we  would  gladly  have  ex- 
changed a  dozen  poets  for  one  good  old-fashioned 
raftsman.  The  Wisconsin  River  is  not  an  easy 
water-road  for  the  expert.  Its  shifting  channel  is 
so  uncertain  that  even  those  familiar  with  it  can- 
not always  follow  it  safely.  But  for  us  amateurs, 
compelled  to  row  three  miles  of  that  uncertain 
river  in  the  teeth  of  the  terrible  storm  which  was 
already  sending  out  its  forked  tongues  of  light- 
ning and  crashing  in  thunders  that  seemed  to 


NEAR   TO   THE    HEART   OF   NATURE     247 

crack  the  foundations  of  the  earth  and  threatened 
to  literally  burn  up  and  roll  away  the  heavens  as 
a  scroll,  the  situation  had  ceased  to  be  interesting, 
and  was  becoming  ominous. 

It  was  reckless  to  push  forward.  The  storm 
was  almost  upon  us.  The  roar  of  the  wind 
united  with  awful  dignity  the  terrible  thunder 
crashes.  Land  was  at  least  better  than  water, 
and  so  we  pulled  for  terra  firma,  which,  before  we 
had  reached  it,  had  begun  to  lose  its  firmness 
because  it  was  completely  water-soaked.  Three 
miles  of  pelting  rain ;  three  miles  of  uncer- 
tain road ;  three  miles  of  blinding  lightning ; 
three  miles  of  unfathomed  mud,  lay  before 
us.  At  first  we  thought  of  lanterns,  umbrellas, 
waterproofs  and  rubber  boots,  but  the  first  quarter 
of  a  mile  was  enough  to  have  rendered  all  these 
useless  if  we  had  possessed  them,  as  we  did  not ; 
and  so  we  groped  and  floundered,  now  in  the 
ditch  and  anon  wishing  we  had  stayed  in  it,  hold- 
ing fast  to  the  hope  that  village  lights  would  soon 
lend  their  provincial  guiding.  Those  were  long 
three  miles,  measured  by  the  psychometry  of  the 
voyagers.  Every  rag  on  our  bodies  became  a 
part  of  our  impedimenta,  accentuating  the  wetness 
through  which  we  stumbled.  The  members  of 


248  JESS 

the  party  who  were  fortunately  caught  barefooted 
had  the  advantage,  for  every  step  they  took  set  the 
foot  in  fresh  water,  while  those  of  us  in  shoes  had 
to  wade  in  the  same  water  which  we  carried  along 
in  our  inadequate  foot-vessels.  In  the  midst  of 
this  awful  storm  my  thoughtful  companion  uttered 
through  his  chattering  teeth,  "  This  is  the  heart 
of  nature  with  a  vengeance ; "  and  in  that  blind 
floundering  between  the  river  and  Muscoda,  in 
the  storm  which  next  day  we  learned  was  at  that 
very  time  floating  bridges  off  their  piers,  carrying 
village  sidewalks  into  the  middle  of  the  road, 
floating  barns,  converting  stack-yards  into  flotillas 
driven  by  the  wind  among  drowned  cattle  and 
pigs,  came  the  text  for  this  vacation  sermon. 

Yes,  this  too  is  the  "  heart  of  nature."  Some- 
where in  the  darkness,  within  three  miles  of  us, 
was  the  cozy,  cleanly  little  country  hotel  with  its 
courteous  and  sympathetic  landlord  and  warm- 
hearted, motherly  German  landlady  who  were 
ready  upon  our  arrival  to  relieve  us  of  our  bap- 
tismal robes,  to  give  us  clean  water  to  wash  off 
the  mud,  to  lend  us  fragrant  linen  and  pack  us 
off  to  bed  under  abundant  coverlets,  and,  further- 
more, somewhere  in  the  mysteries  of  the  kitchen, 
through  help  of  oven  and  fireplace,  to  convert  the 


NEAR   TO   THE    HEART   OF   NATURE     249 

wetness  of  our  garments  into  steam,  to  bake  out 
our  shoes,  and  present  our  clothes  next  morning 
almost  dry. 

All  that  was  waiting  for  this  storm-tossed 
band  of  rest  seekers,  but  it  is  well  to  remem- 
ber that  their  ancestors  faced  tempests  as  se- 
vere, were  caught  in  deluges  as  relentless  when 
there  were  no  brick  walls  waiting  for  them,  no 
kitchen  fires  to  dry  the  garments,  no  garments  to 
get  wet.  All  men  represent  in  their  own  inherit- 
ance this  awful  struggle  of  man  with  nature.  Na- 
ture sought  to  drown  him,  freeze  him,  starve  him. 
Nature  smote  him  with  its  lightning,  swamped 
him  with  its  floods,  buried  him  in  its  snows,  and 
converted  his  running  blood  into  solid  ice.  Man 
still  finds  at  the  heart  of  nature  not  only  that 
which  is  indifferent,  but  that  which  seems  to  be 
antagonistic  to  his  highest  dreams  and  most 
splendid  hopes.  The  houses  he  builds  are  the  toys 
of  the  hurricane.  The  spire  he  rears  in  the  honor 
of  God  is  splintered  by  the  lightning  and  burned 
like  a  derisive  torch.  Man  builds  bridges  for 
nature  to  float  away.  Like  Caliban  in  Browning's 
poem,  our  fore  elders 

"Wove  wattles  half  the  winter,  fenced  them  firm 
With  stone  and  stake  to  stop  she-tortoises 


250  JESS 

Crawling  to  lay  their  eggs  here  :   well,  one  wave, 
Feeling  the  foot  of  Him  upon  its  neck, 
Gaped  as  a  snake  does,  lolled  out  its  large  tongue, 
And  licked  the  whole  labor  flat :   so  much  for  spite."- 

Surely,  those  wiser  than  Caliban  have  often 
been  compelled  to  reflect  with  him, 

"  One  hurricane  will  spoil  six  good  months'  hope." 

There  is  a  dispassionate  calm,  a  sublime  per- 
sistency, a  tireless  energy,  linked  order,  and  mag- 
nificent law  at  the  heart  of  nature,  but  approach- 
ing it  from  the  human  side,  the  soul,  ere  it 
reaches  these,  may  encounter  what  seems  a  stolid 
indifference  to  the  ambitions,  the  longings,  the 
aspirations  of  the  human  soul.  Caterina,  the 
crushed  human  flower  in  George  Eliot's  "  Mr. 
Gilfil's  Love-Story,"  beats  out  the  long  hours 
of  a  windy  moonlight,  her  heart  pierced  with 
the  awful  darts  of  love,  jealousy,  remorse,  shame  ; 
every  fibre  of  her  body,  every  cell  of  her  brain, 
filled  with  torture-fire.  Morally  and  physically 
she  was  strained  to  the  highest  agony  point.  All 
this  while  the  author  says  :  — 

"  Nature  was  holding  on  her  calm,  inexorable  way,  in  un- 
moved and  terrible  beauty.  The  stars  were  swinging  in  their 
eternal  courses ;  the  rides  swelled  to  the  level  of  the  last 


NEAR   TO   THE    HEART   OF    NATURE     251 

expectant  weed  ;  the  sun  was  making  brilliant  day  to  busy 
nations  on  the  other  side  of  the  swift  earth.  What  were  our 
little  Tina  and  her  trouble  in  this  mighty  torrent,  rushing  from 
one  awful  unknown  to  another  ?  Lighter  than  the  smallest  cen- 
tre of  quivering  life  in  the  water-drop,  hidden  and  uncared  for 
as  the  pulse  of  anguish  in  the  breast  of  the  tiniest  bird  that  has 
fluttered  down  to  its  nest  with  the  long-sought  food,  and  has 
found  the  nest  torn  and  empty." 

Who  of  us  has  not  lived  through  fearful 
moments  when  the  sky  seemed  to  mock  our 
human  hearts,  the  sun  to  blister  our  souls  with 
its  calm  and  searching  insolence,  when  the  earth 
had  no  tenderness  in  her  bosom,  but  rather  the 
cruel  indifference  of  a  stranger  ?  Hours  of 
shame  and  loneliness, 

"  When  the  sky,  which  noticed  all,  makes  no  disclosure, 
And  the  earth  keeps  up  her  terrible  composure," 

have  come  upon  us  all.  Nature  seemed  un- 
responsive and  her  forces  unsympathetic,  and 
these  are  not  her  passing  moods,  but  her  perma- 
nent attitude.  How  indifferent  she  is  to  the 
mother's  cry  and  the  father's  prayer,  how  careless 
of  the  wavering  line  that  stands  for  truth  and 
liberty.  Wellington  at  Waterloo  prayed  for 
Blucher  or  night  that  he  might  save  the  weaken- 
ing line.  However  it  might  be  about  Blucher, 


252  JESS 

the  night  would  not  and  did  not  hurry.  England 
or  France,  liberty  or  tyranny,  the  sun  kept  his 
measured  pace,  and  night  came  not  one  second 
before  the  appointed  time.  I  am  persuaded  that 
there  is  some  mistake  in  the  story  of  Joshua  and 
his  contest  with  the  Amorites.  I  do  not  believe 
that  the  sun  stood  still  upon  Gibeon  or  that  the 
moon  halted  over  the  valley  of  Ajalon  in  order 
that  the  hosts  of  Israel  might  avenge  themselves 
upon  their  enemies.  The  sun  and  moon  are 
awfully  impartial.  Their  indifference  is  sublime. 
Even  the  writer  of  the  old  record  realized  what  a 
strain  upon  human  credulity  was  this  claim  of 
partiality  on  the  part  of  the  sun  and  moon,  and 
he  hastened  to  say,  "  And  there  was  no  day  like 
that  before  it  or  after  it." 

What  shall  we  say  of  this  nature  ?      Shall  we 
say  with  Browning's  Caliban, 

"He  hath  a  spite  against  me,  that  I  know," 

or  dare  we  say  in  the  words  which  the  same  poet 
puts  into  the  mouth  of  David, 

"  How  good  is  man's  life,  the  mere  living  !    how  fit  to  employ 
All  the  heart  and  the  soul  and  the  senses  forever  in  joy  !  " 

And  shall  we  rise  to  the  climax  of  the  happy 
shepherd  in  Saul,  and  discover  in  this  law  the 


NEAR   TO   THE    HEART    OF   NATURE     253 

love  adequate  to  our  needs  and  inspiring  to 
our  lives  ? 

We  grope  toward  an  answer.  First,  it  is  for 
us  to  admit  the  fact  that  nature  is  a  stern  land- 
holder and  makes  all  her  tenants  pay  an  exacting 
rent.  At  her  heart  there  are  terrible  forces  that 
ever  menace  and  often  destroy  the  life  of  man. 
It  is  for  us  to  recognize  the  fact  that  there  are 
times  when  the  path  of  human  progress  is  broken 
by  defiles  that  cannot  be  crossed,  by  heights  that 
cannot  be  scaled.  He  who  sees  only  the  sunny 
side  of  nature  sees  but  half,  and  such  a  one,  rea- 
soning from  what  he  sees,  reasons  from  false 
premises. 

In  the  second  place,  before  we  answer,  let  us 
recognize  the  other  fact,  that  at  times  man  has 
triumphed.  Some  men  at  least  have  met  nature, 
grappled  with  her  problems,  disarmed  her  oppo- 
sition. The  storm  is  now  met  with  the  protect- 
ing wall,  the  water-shedding  roof,  and  that  is 
because  man,  who  once  was  exposed  to  its  pitiless 
beatings,  has  conquered  by  virtue  of  his  own 
right  arm.  If  it  is  a  fight  with  nature,  let  us  ac- 
cept the  challenge  with  good  heart  and  fight  it 
out ;  and  in  the  fighting  there  may  be  born  out  of 
human  experience  the  assurance  that,  after  all,  we 


254  JESS 

are  fighting  with  a  friendly  foe,  that  nature  has 
hidden  her  blessings  far  in  the  forest,  high  on  the 
mountain-tops,  deep  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth. 
Nature  never  gives  to  man  her  gold  and  her 
gems,  but  she  says  to  him,  "  There  they  are  ;  if 
you  want  them  you  must  get  them  and  pay  the 
price  therefor."  And  by  the  time  he  has  picked 
the  gold  out  of  the  mountain,  reared  a  house  out 
of  the  forest,  and  dug  his  fuel  out  of  the  coal- 
mine, he  will  have  found,  through  the  exercise  of 
skill,  intelligence,  and  reliance,  that  which  is  more 
valuable  than  gold  or  timber  or  coal.  The  wise 
dervish  embedded  his  unguent  in  the  handles  of 
the  dumb-bells,  and  said  to  the  rheumatic  patient, 
"  Use  these  clubs  every  day  until  they  are  warm, 
and  then  the  virtue  of  the  medicine  will  work  out 
through  the  wood  and  relieve  you  of  your  rheu- 
matism." The  prescription  was  a  wise  one  ;  the 
cure  was  effected.  In  the  exercise,  not  in  the 
ointment,  lay  the  secret  of  the  cure.  It  is  good 
to  flee  the  city  throng,  to  court  the  solitude  of 
the  country  long  enough  at  least  to  realize  the 
pathetic  price  that  humanity  is  paying  for  its 
comforts.  How  few  of  us  have  a  realizing  sense 
of  how  much  life,  —  human  life,  —  love,  patience, 
vitality,  and  hope,  as  well  as  muscle  and  brain, 


NEAR   TO   THE    HEART   OF   NATURE     255 

it  costs  to  give  us  a  loaf  of  bread  or  a  pound  of 
butter. 

Go  stand  with  the  farmer,  as  I  have  done  in 
summer,  and  look  out  of  the  window  while  the 
storm  is  levelling  acres  of  grain,  almost  ready  for 
the  sickle.  Watch  his  face  when  he  sadly  dis- 
covers that  the  army-worm  has  entered  his  field. 
Count  over  the  price  of  the  most  commonplace 
blessings  and  be  ashamed  of  your  pettiness  and 
your  wastefulness,  if  you  can  do  nothing  more. 

But  you  can  go  a  step  further  and  realize  at 
least  that  human  nature,  instead  of  being  an  alien 
in  this  world,  is  the  child  of  this  world  :  that 
instead  of  confronting  some  force  or  forces  antag- 
onistic in  interest  and  fell  in  its  purposes,  it  is  a 
part  of  the  mighty  system.  Human  nature  is 
itself  nature  in  its  highest  manifestation.  Human 
nature  is  the  last  fold  in  the  manifold  life  of  this 
old  world  of  ours.  Man  has  to  fight  no  more 
and  no  different  enemies  than  have  beset  the 
horse,  the  bird,  and  the  worm.  The  seething  of 
the  social  caldron  to-day  is  the  present  form  of 
the  creative  turmoil  once  expressed  in  the  vol- 
canic fires  which  gave  birth  to  iron-mines  and 
copper-beds.  It  is  a  part  of  the  turmoil  that 
once  rolled  molten  nebulae  into  worlds  and  con- 


256  JESS 

densed  fiery  vapor  into  ordered  planets.  Realiz- 
ing this,  we  come  back  again,  satisfied  to  accept 
the  serenities  and  the  patience,  the  harmony  and 
the  beauty  of  the  fields.  We  realize  that  the 
benignity  of  the  country  rests  on  conflicts  won, 
that  it  is  the  result  of  achievements  born  out 
of  struggle,  and  we  willingly  turn  to  the  unfin- 
ished edges  of  creation,  where  God's  battle-line 
is  now  forming.  Here  nature  is  marshalling 
her  best  forces  on  the  human  field  ;  God  is  re- 
vealing himself  most  mightily  out  on  the  very 
picket-line  of  evolution,  here  in  the  heart  of 
the  city,  at  the  centre  of  the  social  compact. 
Man  has  mastered  storm  and  lightning,  but 
he  has  not  mastered  the  passions  of  his  own 
heart.  Thousands  of  acres  in  which  bramble, 
noisome  weed,  and  useless  brush  once  grew  riot, 
have  been  "subdued,"  to  use  the  farm  word. 
They  are  "under  cultivation,"  and  they  are 
now  in  grain  and  grass.  But  there  are  thousands 
of  acres  in  soul-land  still  growing  rank  weeds  of 
selfishness,  still  choked  with  the  brambles  of  pride 
and  passion,  waiting  for  that  subjugation  that 
shall  give  them  over  to  the  grass  and  grain  of 
refinement,  love,  helpfulness,  and  holiness.  Let 
us  take  this  parable  of  nature  in  the  large  and 


NEAR   TO    THE    HEART   OF   NATURE     257 

apply  it  to  the  problems  we  have  in  hand.  Let 
the  country  teach  us,  not  only  the  price  of  serenity, 
but  also  the  source  of  usefulness. 

Out  of  these  experiences  we  return  to  the  old 
cry  of  the  prophet,  emphasized  and  clarified  by 
the  calm  of  outward  nature,  the  simplicity  of  the 
field,  the  ecstasy  of  the  bird. 

"  Wherefore  do  ye  spend  money  for  that  which  is  not  bread  ? 
and  your  labor  for  that  which  satisfied!  not  ?  hearken  diligently 
unto  me,  and  eat  ye  that  which  is  good.  Let  your  soul  delight 
itself  in  fatness.  Incline  your  ear  and  come  unto  me  :  hear, 
and  your  soul  shall  live  ;  and  I  will  make  an  everlasting  covenant 
with  you,  even  the  sure  mercies  of  David." 

These  "  covenanted  mercies  "  are  the  rewards 
of  righteousness,  the  fruits  of  rectitude,  the  out- 
come of  honest  toil  and  simple  living.  They  are 
farthest  removed  from  the  conceit  of  the  pea- 
cock and  the  frivolity  of  the  butterfly.  They  are 
inseparably  related  to  common-sense,  to  self- 
denial,  sobriety,  simplicity  j  to  the  high  economies 
of  thought,  the  perennial  inspirations  of  love. 


THE    PEACE   OF    GOD 


The  peace  of  God  which  passeth  all  understanding. 

PAUL. 


THE    PEACE    OF    GOD 

Great  peace  have  they  which  love  thy  law  :  and  nothing 
shall  offend  them.  — PSALM  cxix.  165. 

WHEN  first  I  began  to  seek  vacations  in  my 
surroundings,  rather  than  seek  for  surroundings 
that  would  make  for  me  a  vacation,  I  used  to 
take  my  journeys  afoot.  Several  times  I  walked 
from  Chicago  to  our  Wisconsin  summer  home. 
In  those  days  I  found  nature  and  human  nature 
as  responsive  to  the  pedestrian  as  later  they 
became  to  the  equestrian.  Half  the  delights  and 
most  of  the  surprises  in  either  case  come  through 
the  familiarity  that  belongs  to  one  who  is  stripped 
of  associations,  positions,  and  what  other  of  sta- 
tion or  class  exclusiveness  imprison  a  man  during 
his  working-days.  How  great  is  the  imprison- 
ment of  this  investment  one  can  scarcely  realize 
except  by  escaping  from  it.  When  the  minister, 
the  man  of  the  city,  was  laid  aside,  when  there 
was  not  even  the  indefinite  name  of  "  Jones  "  to 
mark  me,  then  I  found  the  door  of  familiar  inter- 
course, frank  surprise,  and  simple  human  cordial- 

261 


262  JESS 

ity  wide  open  for  me  on  every  side.  Once,  on 
such  a  tramp,  the  Irishman  whose  horse  I  had 
frightened  as  I  lay  sleeping  under  a  tree,  changed 
his  profanity  into  a  cordial  invitation  to  ride 
when  I  appealed  to  his  sense  of  humor,  and  after 
I  had  rained  upon  him  a  shower  of  questions 
concerning  weather,  crops,  cattle,  and  horses,  he 
said  :  — 

"  And  now  may  I  ask  what  your  business  may 
be  ? " 

"  What  do  you  suppose  ?  " 

"And  sure  and  I  don't  know.  I  think  you 
must  be  working  for  a  newspaper  company,  sir  ;  a 
kind  of  a  reporter,  I  think." 

"  No,  I  am  not  a  reporter.  Why  should  I 
have  any  business  ?  Why  should  I  not  be  trav- 
elling through  the  country  for  the  pleasure  of  it  ?  " 

"  Ah !  get  away  wid  ye !  None  but  some 
poor  divil  of  an  Irishman  would  be  walking 
through  the  country  like  that  unless  he  was 
being  paid  for  it." 

The  hospitable  and  jolly  farmer  was  right. 
Indeed  I  was  being  paid  for  it;  paid  for  it  in 
coin  more  imperishable  than  gold,  in  wealth  that 
could  not  be  taken  away  from  me. 

One  hot  day,  after  a  dusty  walk  of  fifteen  miles, 


THE    PEACE    OF    GOD  263 

I  entered  a  little  country  town  in  northern 
Illinois,  a  commonplace  little  burg  of  perhaps 
fifteen  hundred  souls,  through  which  I  had  gone 
by  train  a  hundred  times,  and  which  I  regarded 
as  one  of  the  prosaic  villages  that  grow  up  along 
our  Western  railways ;  a  town  I  had  thought  of 
as  dusty  and  blistered  in  hot  weather,  as  sloppy 
with  bottomless  mud  in  wet  weather ;  a  town  the 
life  of  which  had  seemed  always  to  centre  around 
the  dreary  "  depot,"  where  the  day  was  marked 
only  by  the  arrival  of  the  trains  that  brought  mail 
and  daily  papers  from  the  metropolis.  But  this 
day,  when  the  solitary  footman  penetrated  the 
unattractive  business  row  that  presents  its  ragged 
by-ways  to  the  railroad,  he  found  to  his  sur- 
prise that  all  these  years  he  had  seen  only  the 
back  door  of  the  town.  The  stained  and  greasy 
station-house  was  a  business  excrescence  upon  a 
little  town  organized  around  a  square  which  was 
already  assuming  the  features  of  a  pretty  park. 
Indeed  I  found  that  this  prairie  town  consisted 
of  a  fringe  of  business  built  around  a  little  arti- 
ficial forest.  A  heavy  chain  fence  surrounded  the 
square  to  keep  out  wagons  and  furnish  a  hitching- 
place  for  horses.  A  few  rough  benches,  green 
grass,  and  a  flowing  well  which  yielded  cold  water 


264  JESS 

strongly  impregnated  with  mineral  flavors  sup- 
posed to  be  medicinal,  were  the  accessories.  The 
memory  of  this  surprise,  this  unexpected  touch 
of  beauty,  stayed  with  me  like  the  memory  of  a 
mother's  kiss  on  the  forehead  of  a  tired  child,  like 
the  echoes  of  a  song  on  the  eve  of  battle.  This 
memory  six  years  later  drew  me  and  Jess  to  it 
again,  and  I  found  delightful  rest  there  for  several 
hours.  Jess  received  good  grooming,  drink,  and 
feed  at  the  hands  of  a  humane  liveryman,  while  I 
threw  myself  on  the  grass  in  the  leafy  heart  of 
this  busy  country  town.  Six  years  had  done 
much  for  the  maples  and  the  elms  planted  in  the 
rich  Illinois  soil.  Their  branches  now  inter- 
locked. Their  shade  had  become  dense.  A 
windmill  surmounted  the  well  and  the  two  formed 
the  "  waterworks  "  which  enabled  the  little  town 
to  keep  its  grass  in  park-like  condition.  A 
dozen  or  more  bright  red  garden  settees  had 
taken  the  place  of  the  rude  benches,  and  the 
heavy  chain  fence  had  been  painted.  Generous 
watering-troughs  for  the  horses  were  provided  on 
the  outside.  Hitching-posts  had  been  straight- 
ened and  their  number  increased.  Business  had 
prospered.  The  gaps  along  the  streets  had  been 
filled  up,  until  now  the  four  sides  of  the  little 


THE   PEACE   OF   GOD  265 

square  were  solid  with  business,  ranging  from  the 
too  many  saloons  on  the  one  side  up  through 
hardware  and  dry-goods  to  the  millinery  shop  and 
the  ice-cream  stand  on  the  opposite  side.  The 
village  tavern  stood  guard  on  one  corner,  the 
bank  on  another ;  and  the  village  hall,  which 
aspired  to  the  dignity  of  an  opera  house,  on  the 
third.  All  around  the  park  there  was  a  contin- 
uous line  of  country  conveyances,  ranging  from 
the  wagon  with  hog-racks  up  through  buggies  of 
all  descriptions  to  the  horses  with  side-saddles, 
upon  which  the  country  girls  had  come  to  fit 
their  new  dresses  or  buy  new  bonnets  for  the 
"  Fourth." 

What  a  delicious  four  hours  did  I  spend, 
studying  the  busy  drama  of  village  life  from  its 
peaceful  and  quiet  centre,  unsuspected  and  unin- 
terfered  with.  I  watched  the  squirrels  playing  in 
the  branches,  barking  at  each  other,  not  afraid  to 
touch  the  ground  where  we  could  confidently 
look  eye  to  eye.  Birds  abounded  in  the  airy 
palaces  of  leaves  overhead.  This  life  was  an 
eloquent  tribute  to  the  civilizing  power  of  a  cen- 
tral park.  What  restraint  on  the  part  of  dogs, 
small  boys  with  sling-shots,  and  the  owners  of 
guns  did  the  presence  of  these  squirrels  and  birds 


266  JESS 

indicate.  On  the  settees  old  men  with  crutches 
beside  them  smoked  and  chatted.  Tired  women 
with  their  parcels  sat  down  to  wait  until  their 
husbands  "  got  through  their  business."  Alas  ! 
how  many  evidences  did  these  four  hours  offer 
of  the  illegitimate  "  business "  that  calls  for 
screens  behind  which  wives  must  not  appear. 
Babies  in  carriages,  with  nurse-girls,  and  babies 
without  either  were  plentiful.  I  insinuated  my- 
self into  the  confidence  of  the  three  boot-blacks 
of  the  town,  who  had  gathered  under  my  elm  tree 
for  the  purpose  of  furthering  plans  to  hold  the 
monopoly  of  the  business,  not  only  in  this  town 
but  in  the  three  or  four  adjoining  railroad  stations 
which  they  visited  daily.  They  told  me  they 
paid  their  fare  up  and  down  the  road  by  blacking 
the  boots  of  the  brakemen.  They  recounted  to 
me  with  great  satisfaction  their  success  in  running 
their  rivals  out  of  business.  Their  methods 
were  very  like  those  of  their  elders,  as  practised 
in  the  great  metropolis  not  fifty  miles  away. 
One  boy  they  had  "  thrashed,"  and  he  kept  out 
of  their  way.  From  another  boy  they  had  stolen 
his  kit,  and  he  never  had  enough  to  buy  the  box 
and  brush  with  which  to  set  up  business  again. 
Another  stronger  and  more  successful  rival  they 


THE   PEACE   OF   GOD  267 

had  bought  out  by  granting  him  the  franchise  of 
certain  newspaper  routes  and  the  exclusive  privi- 
lege of  selling  the  local  sheet,  reserving  for  them- 
selves the  right  of  selling  the  city  papers.  In  a 
measure  their  "  success  in  business  "  was  as  inter- 
esting and  marked  as  that  of  their  elder  co- 
laborers,  the  managers  of  coal,  oil,  and  gas  trusts, 
and  barbed  wire  combines.  I  might  have  learned 
more,  but  the  whistle  of  an  approaching  train 
broke  short  the  interview,  and  the  three  "  success- 
ful and  only  authorized  boot-blacks  "  of  this  and 
adjoining  towns  hurriedly  left  "  to  work  the  vil- 
lage six  miles  south." 

But  there  was  plenty  of  life  left  in  that  little 
square.  A  pair  of  lovers  came  hand  in  hand  to 
eat  their  candy  together.  A  rosy  girl  broke 
away  from  chattering  companions  and  came  and 
sat  not  far  from  me,  a  safe  gray-beard,  while  she 
hurriedly  pulled  an  unopened  letter  from  her 
bosom,  read  it  with  flushed  face,  and  returned 
with  a  smile  that  was  more  intelligible  to  me  than 
to  her  companions.  I  saw  husbands  join  their 
wives  with  words  of  tenderness  and  deeds  of 
grace  that  made  knightly  their  farmers'  garb. 
Others  came  with  words  so  rude  and  tones  so 
brutal  that  the  park  seemed  to  fade  into  a  forest 


268  JESS 

primeval  where  primitive  man  was  sheltered  in 
his  savagery.  One  would  have  known  that  it 
was  on  the  eve  of  harvest  by  the  number  of  new 
rakes,  pitchforks,  and  "  fixings  "  for  reapers  and 
mowers  that  were  loaded  into  the  wagons. 

"  Are  you  ready  now,  John  ? "  said  a  young 
farmer's  wife,  who  was  not  faded  and  did  not 
look  jaded,  and  on  that  account,  I  am  sorry  to 
say,  was  an  exception.  "  Yes,  after  I  run  down 
and  get  a  paper."  "  Wait,"  she  said,  "  here  is  a 
dime  left  over  from  the  eggs.  Get  a  Harper  s 
Weekly.  Jenny  and  Rob  will  enjoy  it  so." 
Presently  the  brawny  young  farmer  returned  with 
his  Tribune  and  Harper's  Weekly  and  something 
larger.  He  handed  them  to  his  wife.  She 
looked  into  the  package,  perhaps  with  more  curi- 
osity than  I  did  out  of  the  corners  of  my  eyes. 
The  "  something  larger  "  was  the  current  number 
of  the  Century  Magazine.  With  a  flush  of  de- 
light she  exclaimed,  "  Oh,  isn't  that  splendid  !  " 
They  went  away  and  left  me  thinking  that  they 
were  taking  a  piece  of  the  park  with  them,  or 
rather  that  there  was  a  little  central  square  with 
shade-trees  and  birds  planted  in  their  home,  and 
that  around  it  the  busy  activities  of  field,  farm- 
yard, and  garden  were  organized. 


THE    PEACE    OF    GOD  269 

Thus  did  the  drama  of  this  little  town  unfold 
itself  about  me.  From  eleven  to  three  of  that 
hot  day  it  would  seem  that  the  whole  circle  of  the 
wants,  woes,  joys,  and  yearnings  of  the  human 
heart  were  exhibited  there  in  countless  variety. 
Something  like  this  occurs  every  day  in  every 
week  through  the  long  summer  months  in  that 
town,  which  is  intersected  with  roaring  railroad 
trains,  girdled  with  raggedness,  surrounded  by 
the  noise  and  hurry  and  coarseness  of  tem- 
pestuous life.  Here  was  a  great  peace,  the  peace 
of  God,  cast  into  the  tumultuous  life  of  the 
world  and  worldliness.  Here  was  evidence  that 
it  is  possible  to  overarch  our  hurry  with  calm,  and 
that  the  heart  that  is  stayed  in  the  thought  of 
the  eternal  may  find  quiet  and  peace  in  the  press- 
ing conflicts  of  life. 

I  wish  all  our  Western  towns  were  organized 
around  a  square  that  might  become  the  heart 
of  beauty  and  the  home  of  peace,  but  better  yet 
would  it  be  if  that  village  square  could  be  carried 
onward  and  planted  in  the  centre  of  the  human 
soul.  Is  it  not  possible  to  reserve  a  sacred  place 
at  the  core  of  being  ever  dedicated  to  quiet,  how- 
ever vigorously  the  forces  of  life  may  eddy 
around  it  ?  Then,  like  the  sea-birds  that  are 


270  JESS 

said  to  sleep  upon  the  wing,  the  soul  can  rest 
in  its  work,  even  though  it  may  never  rest  from 
its  work.  Noise  and  bluster  and  fatigue  bespeak 
the  dissipation  and  not  the  efficiency  of  soul. 
The  great  forces  of  spirit,  like  those  of  matter, 
work  silently.  The  tornado  is  weak  compared 
to  the  sunshine,  and  in  the  sunshine  the  actinic 
ray  which  reveals  itself  neither  in  light  nor  heat, 
but  in  chemic  force,  was  supposed  to  be  the 
strongest  ray  until  now  its  potency  is  known  to 
be  underlaid  by  the  still  more  hidden  and  mystic 
ray  of  Rontgen,  that  enables  us  to  see  through 
blocks  of  wood  and  find  the  bullet  embedded  in 
the  bone.  The  fuss  and  fog  of  the  engine  are 
made  by  the  worthless  steam.  It  is  not  the 
potent  but  the  impotent  steam  that  makes  the 
noise.  Were  the  walls  of  the  cylinder  trans- 
parent we  should  see  nothing ;  all  would  seem 
still  where  the  power  works  that  pulls  the 
train.  The  quiet  tug  of  the  moon  bends  the 
sea.  The  silent  beckoning  of  the  sun  curves 
the  sweep  of  the  planets.  It  is  so  in  life. 
The  undemonstrative  Grant  was  the  invinci- 
ble. The  all-conquering  Jesus  was  calm  and 
serene. 

The  peace  of  God :    Can  we  analyze  it,  or  at 


THE    PEACE    OF    GOD  271 

least  discover  some  of  its  elements  ?  How  are 
we  to  secure  it  ? 

It  is  borne  in  upon  us  through  the  calm  of 
nature.  I  seek  my  hills,  and  they  fail  me  not. 
The  trees  minister  unto  me,  and  my  river  flows, 
as  ever,  for  the  healing  of  the  heart  as  well  as  for 
the  greening  of  the  landscape.  Waving  corn- 
fields and  fragrant  meadows  temper  the  nerve  and 
soothe  the  heart.  From  the  top  of  Tower  Hill 
the  sun  touches  with  glory  the  horizon-line  cut 
against  the  hill-comb  fifty  miles  long.  When  it 
realizes  such  surroundings  the  soul  becomes 
oriental,  sun-worshipping  becomes  inevitable,  and 
peace  is  there. 

The  informed  mind  is  already  furnished  with 
an  enlarged  liturgy  when  it  enters  the  "  temple 
not  made  with  hands."  Now  the  outcropping 
stratum  becomes  a  chapter  in  the  book  of  revela- 
tion and  the  polished  pebble  a  beatitude  from  the 
great  sermon  of  the  mount  to  which  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  is  but  note  and  commentary.  To 
the  thoughtful  mind  the  blade  of  grass  is  a  para- 
ble, and  the  leaf  on  the  tree  outdoes  all  the 
miracles  of  ancient  scroll.  The  song  of  the 
thrush  is  a  psalm  of  praise.  The  soothing  chant 
of  the  whip-poor-will  which  visits  us  nightly  at 


272  JESS 

Tower  Hill  is  nature's  doxology,  bringing  vesper 
benedictions.  Walt  Whitman,  whose  lines  are 
often  in  my  hands  in  summer  time,  is  a  good 
commentator  on  this  gospel  of  nature  which  be- 
speaks the  peaceful  and  peace-giving  God.  There 
is  a  consolation  and  inspiration  in  the  lesson  he 
thus  teaches  :  — 

"  I  believe  a  leaf  of  grass  is  no  less  than  the  journey  work  of 
the  stars, 

And  the  running  blackberry  would  adorn  the  parlors  of  heaven. 

HC  %•  ^  %  %  % 

And  a  mouse  is  miracle  enough  to  stagger  sextillions  of  infidels." 

Again  he  says  :  — 

"  To  me  every  hour  of  the  light  and  the  dark  is  a  miracle, 
Every  cubic  inch  of  space  is  a  miracle, 
Every  square  yard  of  the   surface  of  the  earth  is  spread  with 

the  same, 
Every  foot  of  the  interior  swarms  with  the  same." 

But  the  road  of  intelligence  is  a  long  one  and 
sometimes  a  tangled  and  briery  one.  Science  is  a 
God-revealer,  but  not  all  can  be  tutored  thereby. 
There  are  other  ways  in  which  nature,  which  is 
but  a  name  for  the  great  God  of  out-of-doors, 
the  reality  that  lurks  in  things,  may  minister  peace 
to  all  the  troublous  hearts  of  men. 


THE   PEACE   OF   GOD  273 

Nature  preaches  the  gospel  of  largeness.  It 
rebukes  the  petty  schemes  of  man.  What  a 
breath  from  heaven  is  that  whose  visible  path 
stretches  out  before  one's  eyes  into  a  haze  thirty 
miles  away.  Holy  are  the  thoughts  which  the 
mind  flings  out  upon  the  mat  of  green  two  miles 
wide  and  seven  miles  long,  woven  from  tall  tree- 
tops,  which  it  may  look  down  upon  from  the 
summit  of  our  hill  tower.  The  mind  regaling 
itself  with  this  message  of  the  trees  joins  the 
breeze  in  the  fanning  of  corn-fields  abundant,  in 
the  swaying  of  forests  triumphant,  in  the  rocking 
of  wheat-fields  resplendent.  Lending  my  con- 
sciousness to  the  winds,  the  thanks  of  neighbor- 
hoods are  mine.  I  fan  the  brow  of  harvesters, 
and  the  cooling  breeze  becomes  in  me  the  breath 
of  God, bringing  a  "  peace  that  passeth  all  under- 
standing." When  the  eye  walks  over  that  rug 
of  green  its  noiseless  feet  disturb  not  the  nest 
places  often  thousand  birds.  Each  of  those  tall 
trees  is  a  kingdom  to  some  lordly  spirit  in  feathers 
or  fur.  The  peace  of  God  is  in  this  sense  of  large- 
ness. Most  of  the  fretting  and  worrying  cares 
come  from  a  sense  of  confinement.  Folks  are  in 
the  way.  Somebody  is  taking  more  room  than 
he  ought.  He  is  crowding  his  neighbor  to  the 


274  JESS 

wall,  taking  his  companion's  space.  This  brings 
discomfort  enough  when  the  pressure  is  a  physi- 
cal one,  when  the  body  lacks  room  to  grow  in,  or 
chance  to  bless  itself  with  abundant  water,  air, 
and  bread ;  but  more  intolerable  is  it  when  the 
mind  is  cramped,  when  the  soul  is  compelled  to 
live  in  narrow  thought-spaces  where  the  air  is 
stuffy  with  the  ideas  of  others,  and  the  walls  of 
the  soul  are  converted  into  prison  walls  by 
dogmas,  creed  words,  and  test  phrases.  These 
traditions  limit  the  horizon,  shut  out  space,  ex- 
clude the  light,  and  obscure  the  God  who  is  most 
often  discernible  on  the  horizon-lines  of  human 
thought,  the  far-off  hills  of  human  hopes,  ay, 
and  in  the  sombre  shadows  and  solemn  soughings 
of  the  great  trees  that  grow  in  the  sorrow-forests 
of  the  human  heart. 

It  is  natural,  in  speaking  of  the  largeness  that 
brings  the  "  peace  of  God "  into  the  human 
soul,  to  think  of  the  ministrations  of  the  coun- 
tryside. But  the  God  of  space,  whose  angels 
are  light  and  air,  is  not  foreign  to  the  city ;  and 
though  here  in  Chicago  we  may  not  cast  our 
eyes  up  to  the  hills  "  from  whence  cometh 
strength,"  we  may  turn  them  toward  the  lake, 
whose  spiritual  values  exceed  its  physical  ones. 


THE    PEACE   OF   GOD  275 

It  suggests  a  cleanliness,  an  openness,  a  freedom 
wholesome  to  brains  smitten  with  the  gold  fever, 
altogether  restful  to  the  heart  whose  pulsations 
are  strained  by  the  anxieties  of  trade  or  the 
bitterness  of  unwelcome  and  therefore  ungracious 
toil.  Even  in  cities  less  fortunate  than  Chicago 
the  ever  benignant  skies  bend  above  the  tired  and 
feverish,  and  not  even  the  dense  smoke  clouds  can 
wholly  debar  them  by  day,  still  less  shut  out  the 
heavenly  visitants  by  night.  If  the  city-bound 
would  know  "  the  peace  of  God  that  passeth  all 
understanding,"  they  may  seek  it  by  help  of  the 
unresting  and  unhasting  stars  that,  through  heat 
and  cold,  above  country  and  city,  keep  their 
unerring  way  through  the  fields  of  space  with  the 
rhythmic  harmony  that  suggests  the  music  of  the 
spheres.  Says  Whitman  :  — 

"  I  was  thinking  the  day  most  splendid  till  I  saw  what  the  not- 
day  exhibited, 

I  was  thinking  this  globe  enough  till  there  sprang  out  so  noise- 
less around  me  myriads  of  other  globes." 

I  know  not  what  God  is,  neither  did  Paul, 
"  though  he  be  not  far  from  any  one  of  us." 
But  we  do  know  that  he  is  something  not  smaller 
than  the  stars.  The  infinity  of  worlds  floats  in 


276  JESS 

the  infinite  Being,  and  if  we  would  know  the 
calm  that  lies  beyond  all  the  perturbations  of  the 
planets  and  the  agitation  of  minds  so  much  greater 
than  planets  that  they  can  weigh  them,  track 
them,  and  anticipate  their  wanderings,  we  must 
learn  of  all  these  largenesses.  We  must  expand 
our  minds  with  broad  horizon-lines,  open  the 
windows  of  the  soul  to  the  daylight,  and  not  for- 
get those  that  let  in  the  starlight. 

"  Not  till  the  sun  excludes  you  do  I  exclude  you. 

Not  till  the  waters  refuse  to  glisten  for  you  and  the  leaves 
to  rustle  for  you,  do  my  words  refuse  to  glisten  and 
rustle  for  you." 

This  brings  something  of  the  "  peace  of  God," 
who  "  maketh  the  sun  to  shine  upon  the  just 
and  upon  the  unjust."  Would  we  know  his 
peace,  we  must  rise  by  any  and  all  helps  to  the 
benignant  hospitality  which  enables  us  to  be 
fellows  with  the  ant,  companions  of  the  robin, 
playfellows  with  the  dog,  comrades  that  will  not 
betray  the  trust  of  the  horse.  Then  the  radiance 
of  the  sun  will  shine  upon  our  brows  and  the 
solemn  vault  of  our  heart-heavens  will  be  studded 
with  stars. 

Another  way  in  which  nature,  the  out-of-doors, 


THE    PEACE    OF   GOD  277 

may  minister  to  the  peace  of  mind  even  of  the 
untutored,  is  through  its  inevitableness.  There 
is  consolation  in  the  law  of  gravitation  beyond 
the  reach  of  any  man-wrought  "  schemes  "  of  sal- 
vation, because  we  can  depend  upon  it.  There 
is  ever  a  consciousness  of  something  divine  in  the 
presence  of  the  inevitable.  "  Though  he  slay 
me  yet  will  I  trust  in  him,"  said  the  brave  old  poet 
in  the  book  of  Job.  In  the  country  we  are 
brought  into  first-hand  relations  with  those  forces 

o 

which  we  must  respect,  though  they  respect  not 
us.  From  January  to  January  the  farmer's  eyes 
are  turned  to  the  sky,  trying  to  read  therefrom 
his  day's  destiny.  "Will  it  rain  or  shine?"  is  the 
ever  perplexing  question.  He  cannot  change 
the  weather,  but  all  his  strength  goes  to  the  task 
of  fitting  himself  into  the  inevitable.  Exorable 
man  adjusting  himself  to  the  inexorable  God  will 
always  find  his  providence  divine. 

One  morning  in  one  of  my  vacations  I  watched 
from  our  hilltop  the  most  spectacular  approach 
of  a  storm  I  have  ever  witnessed.  Over  the  rim 
of  the  hills  thirty  miles  to  the  westward  a  line  of 
gold,  a  very  rivulet  of  saffron  glory,  marked  the 
margin  of  a  rising  cloud.  The  colors  changed, 
shivered,  and  shimmered,  becoming  a  fringe  to  a 


278  JESS 

deepening  curtain  of  spreading  blackness.  Out 
of  its  margin  the  fiery  tongues  of  the  lightning 
darted,  but  no  sound  reached  our  ears.  Miles  of 
sunlight  lay  between  us  and  that  semi-transparent 
cloud-retort  in  the  sky.  But  momentarily  the 
sunlit  spaces  narrowed,  the  clouds  big  with  storms 
came  up  from  the  north  and  south  out  of 
No-man's  land  and  joined  by  a  flank  movement 
the  charging  squadrons  that  were  moving  from 
the  west.  The  colors  changed  from  vanishing 
blue  to  threatening  black.  Purples  and  greens 
and  yellows  seemed  to  wait  upon  the  fiery  tongues 
of  the  lightning.  All  the  while  the  magnificent 
array  was  bearing  down  upon  us  at  the  rate  of 
eight  or  ten  miles  an  hour.  The  location  of  the 
storm-line  was  definite,  the  time  of  its  approach 
was  calculable,  the  sultry  air  became  cool,  then 
suddenly  cold.  The  last  strip  of  sunlight  was 
annihilated,  the  valleys  were  shadowed,  the  birds 
flew  to  cover,  the  squirrels  in  the  trees  gave  their 
nervous  bark,  as  if  wishing  to  impart  their  anxiety 
to  the  human  beings  they  had  learned  to  trust. 

By  this  time  the  storm  was  audible  as  it  had 
been  visible.  The  murmur  of  leaves  had  deep- 
ened into  forest  moans.  The  lightning  played 
with  thunder  accompaniments.  The  artillery  of 


THE   PEACE    OF    GOD  279 

the  skies  had  opened  fire.  Still  the  ranks  moved 
on.  Presently  the  first  heavy  drops  began  to  fall, 
snapping  as  they  fell  like  the  minie-balls  from  a 
skirmish  line.  Then  the  whole  line  volleyed  and 
thundered,  and  the  deluge  was.  For  two  tre- 
mendous hours  and  more  the  world  was  all  wet, 
and  the  end  seemed  at  hand,  and  still  even  the  little 
birds  were  not  frightened.  I  think  even  the  rest- 
less nerve  of  the  squirrel  must  have  been  soothed, 
and  that  busy-body  was  content  to  keep  almost 
still  while,  with  a  degree  of  deliberation,  he 
barked  at  the  rain.  The  wet  world  rested  and 
waited.  After  the  deluge  came  the  rainbow,  its 
promises  swiftly  followed  by  fruition.  The  rain- 
cloud  left,  trailing  the  sunlight  after  it,  and  all 
the  world  seemed  soft  with  a  newness,  as  if  it  had 
that  moment  dropped  out  of  creation's  mould. 
Nature  seemed  glad  with  a  freshness  just  from 
God.  Even  the  farmer  smiled  pensively  as  he 
looked  out  upon  his  over-burdened  oat-fields, 
downed  by  the  storm,  never  again  to  rise  into  the 
fulness  of  a  crop  or  the  possibility  of  good  har- 
vesting. He  has  learned  to  accept  the  inevitable, 
though  not  always,  indeed,  without  grumbling  a 
little.  He  has  learned  to  live  by  using  nature, 
and  not  thwarting  her ;  not  expecting  to  change 


280  JESS 

the  unbending  laws,  but  trying  to  conform  to  the 
"  beautiful  necessity,"  as  Emerson  calls  it. 

Storms  are  not  always  physical ;  clouds  charged 
with  sorrow  as  well  as  with  rain  darken  the 
horizon  of  man.  Human  hopes  are  swayed  by 
gusts  from  beyond  the  horizon-line,  even  as  the 
forests  were.  Human  plans,  heart-dreams,  head- 
schemes  are  uprooted  like  the  maple  trees  in  the 
forest;  they  are  broken,  snapped,  and  twisted  like 
the  oak  branches  in  the  storm.  Soul-fields, 
apparently  almost  ready  for  the  sickle,  are  beaten 
down  and  the  harvest  is  lost.  Perhaps  our  ex- 
perience with  the  first  storm  may  help  us  to  meet 
the  second,  at  first  with  grim  fortitude,  if  need  be, 
then  with  sweet  resignation,  and  at  last  with 
triumphant  peace.  For  assuredly,  seed-time  and 
harvest  do  follow  each  other,  and  sunshine  follows 
rain ;  but  who  will  say  that  the  one  is  more 
beneficent  than  the  other  ?  Surely,  "  the  dark- 
ness and  the  light  are  both  alike  to  thee."  And 
to  know  the  "  peace  of  God  "  is  to  rejoice  in  the 
ways  of  God,  to  accept  what  cannot  be  avoided, 
to  revere  the  inevitable,  to  utilize  the  storms  if 
need  be,  to  fill  our  sails  with  their  tempestuous 
gales,  compelling  them  to  bear  even  us,  upon 
whose  heads  they  pour  their  pitiless  energy,  to 


THE   PEACE   OF   GOD  281 

higher  calm,  the  eternal  poise  and  "  peace  of 
God." 

But  highest  peace  comes  through  highest  re- 
sources. As  the  human  heart  is  higher  than  the 
storm-cloud,  so  the  disclosing  God  reveals 
through  it  higher  lessons  which  teach  diviner 
calms.  If  we  would  know  "  the  peace  of  God 
that  passeth  understanding"  we  must  seek  him  in 
the  ministrations  of  love.  The  outpourings  of 
the  human  heart  are  divine,  if  all  else  be  demoniac. 
The  babe  nestling  at  mother's  breast  has  found 
a  sacred  shelter,  a  haven  of  rest,  if  there  be  none 
other.  The  mother,  engirdled  by  manly  love, 
knows  the  heaven  of  the  child,  and  more.  The 
father  and  mother  environed  in  the  sympathy  of 
their  neighbors,  stayed  by  the  love  of  their  kind, 
rinding  their  burdens  borne  by  the  willing  hands 
and  anxious  hearts  of  others,  find  a  still  broader 
heaven  ;  they  are  invited  into  the  peace  of  love, 
the  peace  of  God,  the  peace  that  lifts  them  above 
their  own  burdens  by  teaching  them  to  take  up 
the  burdens  of  others. 

I  have  seen  other  storms  than  those  that  affect 
fields  and  forests.  I  have  seen  dark  visitations 
of  grief,  lightning  darts  that  shattered  plans, 
hopes,  and  life  itself.  I  cannot  measure  the  scope 


282  JESS 

of  the  one  storm  more  than  the  other ;  I  cannot 
penetrate  the  mystic  outcome  of  the  one  more 
than  the  other;  but  in  the  one  case  as  in  the 
other  I  have  caught  glimpses  of  a  glory  revealed 
that  before  was  hidden. 

From  the  slopes  of  Tower  Hill  I  once  watched 
another  storm  break  from  a  cloudless  sky,  over- 
hanging the  serene  landscape  with  terrible  shad- 
ows, rending  the  air  with  terror,  agony,  dismay  so 
awful  that  it  seemed  as  though  life  could  never 
again  go  on  and  as  if  the  sun  never  again  would 
shine.  And  all  this  storm  was  inward.  The 
lightning  darts  were  spiritual,  the  convulsions 
were  of  the  soul-fields.  While  young  life  sported 
in  the  waters,  dallied  with  the  river  in  innocent 
recreation  after  a  thoughtful  day,  the  danger-line 
was  passed,  the  unsuspected  but  treacherous  sands 
gave  way  to  the  deep  place  where  life  was  in  jeop- 
ardy. A  moment's  struggle,  a  few  moments  of 
intrepid  battling  by  manly  arms,  and  two  young 
lives  had  gone  out  of  the  lives  that  held  them  so 
closely,  two  bodies  had  sunk  beneath  the  current 
that  in  a  moment  was  changed  from  playful 
beauty  to  awful  doom.  One  of  the  lives  thus 
wrenched  from  its  loved  moorings  was  that  of  a 
great-hearted,  noble-purposed,  high-aimed  maiden 


THE    PEACE   OF    GOD  283 

whom  we  loved  and  trusted,  who  so  merited  life 
by  her  large  purposes  and  the  earnest  of  faithful 
preparation.  The  other  was  a  youth  who  up  to 
that  moment  was  a  stranger.  "  My  God,  I  must 
save  that  life !  "  he  exclaimed,  and  plunged  in  to 
rescue  the  life  he  knew  not,  and  lost  his  own, 
changing  in  a  moment,  with  uncalculating  willing- 
ness, youth,  health,  life,  and  love  for  duty  and 
death.  For  two  days  and  two  nights  we  saw  fifty 
men  leaving  their  unreaped  grain  in  the  field,  their 
unattended  business  in  shop  and  at  desk,  search- 
ing in  unremitting  toil  for  the  lifeless  body  of 
one  whom  they  had  never  known  or  seen,  one 
who  belonged  by  ties  of  blood  to  those  three 
hundred  miles  away,  whom  they  knew  not  and 
never  expected  to  see. 

In  consequence  of  that  storm  the  heart  yielded 
an  abundant  harvest  of  love,  life  was  watered 
by  sympathy,  quickened  into  nobleness  by  tears. 
The  fields  of  the  soul  were  fertilized,  and  will 
bring;  forth  richer  harvests  farther  on.  The 

D 

storm-swept  gardens  of  God  were  enriched,  and 
the  peace  of  God  crept  into  many  a  heart. 
Faces  of  toiling  men  and  toiling  women,  the 
common  folk  of  the  country-side,  untutored  by 
the  school  and  for  the  most  part  unconfessed 


284  JESS 

by  the  church,  shone  through  that  storm  with 
the  radiance  of  the  Mount.  The  faces  of  unbap- 
tized  ones  were  transfigured  because  they  were 
christened  of  the  spirit,  made  radiant  by  love. 
Love  paid  for  the  loss  of  crops  and  neglected 
business.  Love,  in  and  through  that  storm, 
touched  those  valley-dwellers  with  the  peace  of 
God  that  mellowed  their  lives  and  hallowed  their 
thoughts  for  many  a  year  to  come. 

Oh,  it  was  a  terrible  storm.  All  the  runways 
of  our  lives  became  suddenly  torrent-laden,  our 
spirits  were  saturated  with  grief;  but,  as  a  conse- 
quence, sacred  spots  have  been  multiplied,  the 
number  of  holy  places  has  been  increased  in  the 
world,  and  we  have  walked  on  holy  ground  where 
before  we  had  walked  in  irreverence  and  thought- 
lessness. The  legacy  left  us  by  the  radiant 
maiden  already  gilds  with  sacramental  halo  that 
which  before  seemed  of  the  common  and  com- 
monplace. She  has  tested  the  adequacy  of  the 
faith  in  the  love  that  now  is  and  the  more 
abundant  love  we  call  death. 

If  life  is  given  to  enrich  life,  if  we  are  here  to 
ameliorate  the  hard  conditions,  to  soften  preju- 
dices, to  weaken  bigotries,  to  widen  sympathies, 
in  short,  to  enlarge  the  boundaries  of  life  and 


THE   PEACE    OF   GOD  285 

to  make  more  beautiful  this  world-home  of  ours, 
who  dare  say  that  the  young  man  did  not  choose 
well?  There  was  a  magnificent  triumph  in  that 
defeat,  there  is  a  perennial  potency  in  such  a  dis- 
appointment. The  gardens  of  God  bloom  the 
brighter  for  that  act  of  self-forgetfulness.  That 
youth  added  a  noble  stone  to  the  wall  of  the 
slowly  rising  cathedral,  the  temple  of  human  ex- 
cellence, the  church  of  the  holy  deed,  the  home 
of  the  loyal.  The  manly  impulse  was  trans- 
planted into  a  hundred  young  hearts  in  that 
country-side.  With  electric  haste  and  potency 
the  story  was  flashed  from  one  end  of  the  land  to 
the  other.  I  believe  in  the  contagion  of  excel- 
lence. The  fructifying  power  of  such  nobleness 
is  guaranteed  by  the  same  law  that  holds  the 
planets  in  their  places,  and  brings  the  flowers 
of  spring  and  the  fruits  of  autumn. 

Yes,  the  peace  of  God  was  in  the  storm.  It 
was  the  profound  peace  that  rests  at  the  heart 
of  Niagara.  That  mighty  body,  gathered  from 
its  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  square  miles 
of  lake  and  river,  that  drainage  of  half  a  million 
square  miles  of  hills  and  valleys,  takes  its  tre- 
mendous leap  of  more  than  one  hundred  and 
sixty  feet,  pouring  its  eighty-five  million  tons 


286  JESS 

of  water  per  hour.  And  underneath  there  is 
silence,  a  calm  at  the  heart  of  it.  It  spoke  its 
own  language  in  the  soul  of  Charles  Dickens 
when  it  taught  him  to  say,  "  The  first  and  last- 
ing effect  of  the  tremendous  spectacle  was  peace, 
peace  of  mind,  calm  recollections  of  the  dead, 
great  thoughts  of  eternal  rest  and  happiness." 
And  this  peaceful  and  peace-giving  torrent  has 
gone  on  measuring  the  mighty  floods  of  Erie, 
Huron,  Michigan,  and  Superior,  draining  the 
limitless  fields  of  the  great  northwestern  basin 
without  break  or  plaint,  sending  up  its  perpetual 
incense  of  vapory  adoration  to  the  sun  through 
an  antiquity  which  Lyell  says  antedates  the  Alps, 
the  Pyrenees,  and  the  Himalayas.  The  tourist 
who  ventures  behind  the  veil  of  this  tremendous 
waterfall  finds  that  his  own  voice  is  more  pene- 
trating than  this  voice  of  the  eternal  ages,  and  he 
can  readily  converse  with  his  guide.  Surely  here 
the  troubled  soul  can  say,  in  the  words  of  the 
hymn :  — 

"  Oh,  how  still  is  the  working  of  His  will." 

May  we  not  find  in  this  mighty  spectacle  of  na- 
ture some  hints  that  will  help  us  enter  into  this 
"  peace  that  floweth  like  a  river,"  this  "  peace 
that  passeth  all  understanding  ?  " 


THE    PEACE    OF   GOD  287 

The  fall  of  the  great  river  sublimely  illustrates 
the  point  I  have  already  urged.  The  resistlessness 
of  Niagara  is  restful  and  peace-giving  because  of 
the  abundant  supply  ;  there  is  plenty  of  water  to 
keep  it  going.  Jutting  crags  may  obtrude  and 
churn  the  surface  into  whirlpools,  but  these  are 
trifling  incidents  in  the  career  of  the  stately  river, 
for  it  comes  out  of  unfailing  sources,  and  it 
travels  into  the  all-capacious  bosom  of  the  fath- 
omless sea  ;  and  when  we  realize  that  the  ever 
precipitant  intensity  of  our  lives  is  fed  from  the 
exhaustless  fountains  of  being,  and  is  tending 
toward  the  all-widening  and  deepening  ocean  of 
truth,  we  too  become,  like  the  Niagara,  peaceful 
and  irresistible.  The  head  waters  of  the  St. 
Louis  of  the  North  are  some  twelve  hundred 
miles  away  from  Niagara,  and  still  the  remotest 
spring  in  that  far-off  British-American  wilderness 
is  a  constant  pressure  and  present  power  at  the 
heart  of  Niagara.  More  remote  than  the  head 
waters  of  the  St.  Louis  of  the  North  from 
Niagara,  are  the  fountains  of  human  life  that  feed 
the  torrent  of  feeling,  the  cataract  of  thought, 
that  is  poured  through  our.  being.  From  the 
heights  of  Ararat  and  from  the  foot  of  the  still 
remoter  Himalayas  of  India,  sprang  those  foun- 


288  JESS 

tains  of  Semitic  inspiration  and  Brahminic  medi- 
tation that  even  yet  flow  through  our  lives. 
So,  also,  do  the  Hebrew  psalmist's  trust  and 
the  Greek  poet's  serenity  flow  through  our  feel- 
ing, and  as  behind  us  there  presses  the  contribu- 
tion of  the  ages,  before  us  there  waits  the 
measureless  Pacific  of  truth,  the  unattained  ocean 
of  love,  the  ever  surging  sea  of  unrealized  life. 
Why  should  there  not  be  in  our  lives  consciously 
something  of  that  unconscious  peace  that  lurks 
at  the  heart  of  Niagara  ?  There  is  peace  there 
because  so  much  of  the  battle  was  fought  beyond 
the  painted  rocks  of  Lake  Superior.  There  is 
pure  water  at  the  rapids,  the  foam  rises  milk- 
white,  because  the  mud  and  wash  of  Michigan, 
Wisconsin,  and  Minnesota  have  been  deposited  at 
the  bottom  of  the  Great  Lakes.  The  malarial 
waters  of  our  prairies  have  been  clarified  by  the 
winds  of  Mackinac,  filtered  through  the  Straits 
of  Sault  Ste.  Marie.  What  is  the  Niagara  of 
our  lives  but  an  accumulation  of  those  waters 
that  have  fought  their  way  hither  through  the 
rapids  of  Greece  and  Rome,  and  the  European 
centuries  of  Christian  struggle  ?  Should  we  not 
transform  our  turmoil  into  calm  as  we  realize  that 
before  us  opens  the  great  ocean,  the  boundaries 


THE    PEACE    OF    GOD  289 

of  which  we  cannot  foresee,  the  depths  of  which 
we  cannot  fathom  ?  for  if  we  could,  it  would 
cease  to  be  the  sea.  Content  let  us  be  to  know 
that  we  are  ever  tending  toward  the  eternal  waters. 
Let  not  my  similes  tyrannize  over  us.  Let 
river  and  park  be  forgotten.  I  leave  my  sermon 
at  the  last  in  the  words  of  my  sublime  text, 
"  Great  peace  have  they  which  love  thy  law :  and 
nothing  shall  offend  them."  Only  those  who  do 
love  this  law  with  an  absorbing  self-abandonment, 
those  to  whom  duty  becomes  a  law  of  gravitation, 
enabling  the  soul  to  fling  itself  into  a  struggle  for 
the  right  as  freely  as  Niagara  throws  itself  over 
the  mighty  precipice,  gain  this  peace,  and  those 
who  have  gained  it  are  always  peaceful.  To 
such  there  can  be  no  defeat.  In  such  lives  right- 
eousness and  peace  kiss  as  in  the  dream  of  the 
psalmist.  The  peace  of  God  is  this  peace  of  con- 
flict, the  peace  of  motion,  the  serenity  of  action. 
It  is  the  park  in  the  heart  of  business,  the  beauty 
in  trade.  Higher  than  life  in  the  human  heart  is 
the  thirst  after  righteousness.  When  nature's 
haunts  and  love's  consolations  fail,  duty  still  re- 
mains to  bring  peace  to  millions  of  souls.  Only 
he  who  has  learned  that  God  is  one  with  goodness 
passes  through  the  final  gates  into  glory.  He 


290  JESS 

knows  the  Shekinah,  the  visible  glory,  the  God 
made  manifest. 

What  did  Paul  the  persecuted,  the  valiant 
fighter,  know  of  peace  ?  What  did  Luther,  de- 
fying devils  at  Worms,  know  of  peace  ?  What 
did  John  Brown  on  the  Harper's  Ferry  gal- 
lows know  of  peace  ?  What  did  Jesus  on  the 
cross  know  of  peace  ?  They  knew  more  than  all 
seekers  after  success,  more  than  all  those  who 
compromise  with  the  clearness  of  their  convic- 
tions, more  than  the  temporizers  for  the  sake  of 
dollars,  for  the  sake  of  numbers,  even  for  the 
sake  of  usefulness ;  more  than  all  those  who 
shrink  'from  pain  and  who  think  happiness  the 
best  thing  to  give  or  the  best  thing  to  get,  while 
God's  truth  is  in  jeopardy  and  the  liberty  of  soul 
is  still  pawned.  Only  those  know  the  peace  of 
God  who  have  chosen  the  rugged  way  of  duty 
rather  than  the  apparently  smooth  path  of  pros- 
perity and  of  comfort.  Duty  is  the  upper  road 
to  God.  He  who  takes  it  promptly  meets  the 
eternal.  His  peace  comes  to  its  ultimate  com- 
pleteness only  in  the  councils  of  justice,  in  the 
triumphs  of  freedom  and  of  right. 

All  this  is  but  groping  toward  the  deeper 
meaning  of  my  text.  I  know  not  the  whence 


THE   PEACE   OF   GOD  291 

nor  the  whither  of  life.  I  am  sure  only  that  the 
one  as  the  other  is  mysteriously  sheathed  in 
divinity.  The  grave  is  no  more  inexplicable 
than  the  cradle.  Science  may  trace  the  process 
of  evolution  to  lowest  forms,  prophecy  may  dare 
to  anticipate  the  future,  but  origin  and  destiny 
are  a  part  of  the  eternal  mystery,  the  thought  of 
which  is  allied  to  the  eternal  peace  of  God. 

Death,  then,  like  birth,  we  salute  as  friend ; 
the  revealer,  the  peace-giver,  the  universal  atten- 
dant of  life,  the  sweet  solemn  angel,  we  hail 
as  a  messenger  from  on  high.  With  Emerson  we 
will  still  gird  ourselves  for  life  and  not  for  death :  — 

"As  the  bird  trims  her  to  the  gale, 

I  trim  myself  to  the  storm  of  time, 
I  man  the  rudder,  reef  the  sail, 

Obey  the  voice  at  eve  obeyed  at  prime  : 
'  Lowly  faithful,  banish  fear, 

Right  onward  drive  unharmed  ; 
The  port,  well  worth  the  cruise,  is  near, 

And  every  wave  is  charmed.'  ' 

And  with  Browning,  — 

"At  noonday  in  the  bustle  of  man's  work-time 
Greet  the  unseen  with  a  cheer  ! 

Bid  him  forward,  breast  and  back  as  either  should  be. 
'  Strive  and  thrive  !  '   Cry  '  Speed,  —  fight  on,  fare  ever 
There  as  here  !  '  " 


THE   UPLANDS    OF   THE  SPIRIT 


So  call  not  waste  that  barren  cone 

Above  the  floral  zone, 

Where  forests  starve  : 

It  is  pure  use  ;  — 

What  sheaves  like  those  which  here  we  glean  and  bind 

Of  a  celestial  Ceres  and  the  Muse  ? 

****** 

Hither  we  bring 

Our  insect  miseries  to  thy  rocks  ; 

And  the  whole  flight,  with  folded  wing, 

Vanish,  and  end  their  murmuring,  — 

Vanish  beside  these  dedicated  blocks, 

Which  who  can  tell  what  mason  laid  ? 

****** 

Mute  orator  !  well  skilled  to  plead, 

And  send  conviction  without  phrase, 

Thou  dost  succor  and  remede 

The  shortness  of  our  days, 

And  promise,  on  thy  Founder's  truth, 

Long  morrow  to  this  mortal  youth. 

RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 


294 


THE   UPLANDS    OF    THE   SPIRIT 

Lead  me  to  the  Rock  that  is  higher  than  I.  —  PSALM.  Ixi.  2. 

THE  bluff  country  of  the  upper  Mississippi 
and  its  tributaries  is  becoming  more  and  more 
precious  to  the  Western  eye,  accustomed  to  the 
fertile  monotony  of  prairie  levels.  These  uplands 
minister  to  soul  as  much  as  they  refresh  the 
body.  The  Mississippi  Valley  yields  never  a 
mountain  from  the  Alleghanies  to  the  Rockies, 
but  these  bluffs  display  the  rugged  chisellings  of 
nature.  They  disclose  the  edges  of  the  geologic 
leaves  in  the  great  book  that  tells  the  story  of 
creation.  Their  summits  are  high  enough  to 
deepen  the  breath  and  quicken  the  pulse  of  the 
climber,  to  sharpen  the  edge  of  the  senses  and 
give  new  zest  to  the  mind.  The  never  satisfied 
quest  of  the  living  soul  is  for  a  view,  a  fresh 
angle  from  which  to  study  the  face  of  things,  a 
longer  vista  of  field  and  forest,  an  opportunity  of 
looking  down  on  the  winding  ways  of  men  and 
women,  over  and  into  the  toils  and  the  joys  of 

»95 


296  JESS 

brothers  and  sisters.      There  is  great  help  to  the 
spirit  in  a  view  properly  appropriated. 

In  the  Blue  Mounds  we  find  Wisconsin's 
humble  substitute  for  a  mountain;  I  say  a  substi- 
tute, for  it  is  one  to  be  graciously  and  joyously 
accepted  ;  for  he  who  has  no  eye  for  a  hillock  may 
never  enjoy  the  hill,  and  he  who  despises  the  bluff, 
with  its  five  hundred  feet  of  altitude  above  the 
winding  river,  its  glorious  expanse  carpeted  with 
green  fields,  rugged  with  cattle-pastures,  and 
dotted  with  villages,  will  probably  have  little 
more  than  conventional  enthusiasm  and  fashion- 
able compliment  for  the  White  Mountains  or  the 
Rockies.  This  summit  is  the  second  highest 
point  in  Wisconsin,  the  first  in  availability  and 
attractiveness.  A  flinty  cap  some  sixty  or  eighty 
acres  in  extent  has  protected  the  top  of  this 
mound  from  the  slow  chisellings  of  nature,  which 
through  untold  ages  have  excavated  and  lowered 
the  surface  of  all  the  surrounding  country.  This 
exceptional  plateau  remains  six  or  seven  hundred 
feet  higher  than  all  the  bluffs  of  that  region,  and 
some  fourteen  hundred  feet  above  the  level  of 
Lake  Michigan.  Its  woody  sides  form  the  con- 
spicuous landmark  of  every  wide  view  obtainable 
in  the  four  or  five  neighboring  counties. 


THE    UPLANDS    OF   THE   SPIRIT       297 

To  this  much-neglected,  unheralded,  and  under- 
estimated summit  our  party  travelled.  For  one 
hundred  and  fifty  miles  it  was  our  objective 
point,  and  our  drive  was  rewarded.  From  this 
upland  of  nature  the  eye  scans  an  unbroken 
horizon-circle  forty  or  more  miles  in  diameter. 
Only  the  limits  of  the  human  eye  and  the  curved 
line  of  the  old  earth  obstruct  the  vision.  We 
looked  down,  not  only  upon  the  marvellous  com- 
binations of  curve  and  color  enriched  by  the  ever- 
shifting  shadow  lines,  but  also  upon  the  homes 
of  toiling  men  and  women.  From  our  rocky 
height  we  caught  great  hints  concerning  little 
lives,  broad  suggestions  about  narrow  spheres, 
and  our  minds  wandered  off  on  high  mountains 
over  lowly  doings.  Even  these  few  hundred 
feet  of  superior  altitude  caused  division  fences 
and  section  lines  to  fade  away.  From  this  height 
political  animosity,  party  distinctions,  sectarian 
rivalries,  and  even  race  lines,  formed  no  part  of 
the  greater  landscape.  We  could  not  resist  the 
temptation  to  count  the  spires  that  pierced  the 
carpeting  green,  but  we  never  thought  of  asking 
whether  they  were  Protestant  or  Catholic,  Meth- 
odist or  Baptist.  It  was  easy  to  take  them  at 
their  best.  In  them  we  saw  typified  the  aspira- 


298  JESS 

tions  of  that  quiet  country-side.  It  was  easy  to 
believe  in  them  all  as  having  power  to  cast  help- 
ful shadows  over  stricken  lives.  We  counted 
the  villages,  traced  the  winding  path  of  the  rail- 
road, and  thought  of  the  great  waves  of  commerce 
that  broke  in  little  ripples  on  the  side  of  the 
gracious  hill.  Even  from  the  altitude  of  Blue 
Mounds  the  railroad  ceased  to  suggest  monopoly, 
extortion,  or  the  sharp  conflict  between  capital 
and  labor,  and  became  instead  a  sympathetic  link 
between  that  rustic  little  world  and  the  great 
pulsing  world  of  commerce  beyond.  The  radi- 
ating lines  of  railways  became  the  restive  antennae 
of  the  great  social  organism  on  the  back  of  which 
we  seemed  to  ride. 

At  night  we  saw  the  sun  sink  into  a  golden  sea, 
and  we  waited  upon  the  little  world  below  us  with 
its  tired  harvesters  to  bed.  We  saw  the  stars  come 
out,  one  by  one,  and  thought  of  the  restless  babes 
and  anxious  mothers  to  whom,  perchance,  the  holy 
night  brought  no  rest  and  to  whom  the  "  unhast- 
ing  and  unresting  stars "  gave  no  sleep.  We 
were  there  when  the  sun,  prompt  to  its  engage- 
ment, made  "when  first  the  morning  stars  sang 
together  for  joy,"  came  out  of  the  molten  sea  of 
shimmering  vapor,  touching  with  light  the  state- 


THE    UPLANDS   OF   THE    SPIRIT       299 

house  dome  twenty  miles  away,  awake '".ing  again 
the  little  world  at  our  feet  to  care,  to  toil,  to 
another  day's  struggle  and  another  day's  weari- 
ness. 

How  different  was  this  scene  from  those 
habitual  to  the  farm  dwellers  below  ;  and  still  we 
were  but  a  few  miles  away  and  but  a  few  hundred 
feet  above  them.  How  this  change  of  altitude 
changed  the  accent  in  our  spiritual  pronunciation, 
the  emphasis  in  our  thought.  What  seemed  so 
important  below  became  trifling ;  what  in  the 
valley  we  scarcely  saw  at  all,  or  seeing  gave 
little  thought,  on  the  hilltop  became  the  central 
points  in  life.  That  farmer,  walled  in  by  great 
banks  of  green  on  every  side,  made  the  barn 
the  pivotal  point  around  which  his  life  did  largely 
move,  and  the  days  of  the  wife  circled  in  con- 
scious tyranny  around  the  milk-house.  But 
from  the  near  hilltop  it  was  evident  that  the 
rustic  schoolhouse,  half  hid  in  the  trees  at  the 
cross-roads,  was  more  focal  to  that  farm  home 
than  the  stables  ;  and  the  little  country  church, 
with  its  pine  spire,  was  more  central  than  the 
spring-house.  Somehow  the  little  ragged  grave- 
yard touched  their  lives  more  intimately  than  the 
stack-yard.  As  we  came  down  from  the  Blue 


300  JESS 

Mounds  we  began  to  realize  that  the  truer 
thought  was  inseparably  connected  with  that 
rarer  view,  and  our  missionary  impulse  took  form 
in  a  great  desire  to  persuade  people  to  climb  and 
see  the  view;  for  if  the  dwellers  in  the  valley 
would  but  climb  even  that  gentle  slope,  and  catch 
a  glimpse  of  the  broader  prospect,  their  homes 
and  lives  would  settle  into  their  more  fitting 
perspective. 

As  we  tried  to  tell  the  story  of  our  night 
on  the  hill  to  the  over-worked  farmer  by  the 
roadside,  he  unblushingly  confessed,  "  I  was 
born  under  the  brow  of  Blue  Mounds ;  I  have 
lived  under  their  shadow  all  my  life,  but  I  have 
never  climbed  to  their  summit."  For  thirty 
years  this  lift  of  soul,  this  mind  and  heart  opener 
had  been  within  his  easy  reach,  but  he  had  never 
lifted  his  feet  toward  it.  May  the  story  of  this 
self-imposed  poverty  prove  a  warning,  and  the 
thought  of  this  narrowed  life  quicken  within 
us  the  prayer  of  the  psalmist, — 

"  Lead  me  to  the  Rock  that  is  higher  than  I," 

from  the  top  of  which  I  may  make  a  truer  sur- 
vey of  the  domains  I  call  my  own,  where  I  may 
more  justly  estimate  the  things  that  absorb  my 


THE    UPLANDS    OF   THE    SPIRIT      301 

time  and  enlist  my  energy,  where  I  may  realize 
how  unworthy  are  my  days  and  how  inadequate 
are  my  loves,  how  petty  my  plans  and  ungrateful 
my  tears. 

There  are  Blue  Mounds  of  the  intellect  within 
easy  reach  of  all,  in  the  shadows  of  which  we  were 
born  and  reared,  which,  if  we  would  but  climb 
them,  would  free  us,  for  the  time  being  at  least, 
from  the  dogmatism  and  bigotry,  the  clanking 
chains  of  ignorance  and  selfishness,  that  now  bind 
us.  Perchance  there  is  a  book  on  our  shelves,  or 
within  buying  or  borrowing  distance,  —  it  may  be 
an  essay  of  Emerson,  a  poem  of  Lowell,  or  a 
lecture  by  Tyndall,  —  which,  mastered,  would 
prove  a  veritable  Blue  Mounds  of  the  spirit, 
giving  our  thoughts  a  wider  horizon  than  ever 
they  had  before,  making  it  ever  after  a  little  less 
easy  to  think  meanly  of  our  neighbors,  or  speak 
complacently  of  our  own  acquirements  and 
the  outcome  thereof.  What  did  Channing  and 
Emerson,  Browning  and  Martineau  do  for  them- 
selves ?  They  climbed  the  Blue  Mounds  in  the 
sight  of  which  they  were  born.  They  climbed 
the  highest  hill  within  their  reach,  and  there 
obtained  the  broader  view.  What  are  they  doing 
for  us  and  for  the  world  ?  They  simply  testify 


302  JESS 

to  us  how  things  look  from  tne  top  of  the  Blue 
Mounds,  and  invite  us  to  climb  ;  and  if  we  follow 
their  beckoning  our  lives  are  enlarged.  Those 
we  call  the  great  leaders  of  thought,  such  as  Dar- 
win, Max  Miiller,  Herbert  Spencer,  are  such 
because  they  have  prayed  the  prayer  of  the 
psalmist,  — 

"  Lead  me  to  the  Rock  that  is  higher  than  I." 

They  themselves  climbed  the  Blue  Mounds,  and 
from  the  summit  have  beckoned  others  to  the 
inspiring  prospect. 

But  there  are  other  Blue  Mounds  than  those 
of  the  intellect,  separable  from  them  in  thought, 
if  not  in  fact.  More  available  and  more  alluring 
than  these  heights  of  thought  are  the  hilltops  of 
the  heart,  —  the  Blue  Mounds  of  the  affections. 
Alas,  how  many  of  us  are  like  the  Wisconsin 
farmer,  living  all  our  lives  in  the  shadow  of 
heights  which  would  flood  us  with  beauty,  intro- 
duce us  to  unspeakable  and  immeasurable  glory  ; 
but  we  have  never  found  it  convenient  to  climb 
to  the  tempting  summit,  hence  our  hearts  shiver 
in  selfish  isolation  in  the  valleys  below  while  the 
hillslope  above  is  flooded  with  sunlight.  Many 
a  loveless  life  is  desolate  because  it  has  never 


THE    UPLANDS   OF   THE   SPIRIT      303 

climbed  the  Blue  Mounds  of  the  heart.  If  we 
would  love,  we  must  go  where  love  is.  The 
Presbyterian  and  Baptist  neighbors  can  continue 
to  distrust  one  another  only  by  keeping  apart. 
To  walk  together  upward  toward  the  summit  will 
break  down  theological  exclusiveness  without 
an  argument,  without  text  or  syllogism.  The  so- 
called  broadening  tendencies  in  religion  come 
largely,  not  from  the  wise  arguments  of  the 
scholars,  but  from  the  Blue  Mounds  of  the  heart, 
the  uplands  of  feeling.  The  exclusiveness  of 
Christian  pretensions  holds  good  until  from 
some  Blue  Mounds  of  the  heart  we  spy  a  lovely 
pagan,  or  catch  sight  of  a  tender  heathen.  Once 
the  vision  breaks  upon  our  eyes,  nevermore  can 
we  find  the  old  comfort  in  the  exclusive  gospel, 
never  again  can  we  believe  so  confidently  in 
the  special  revelation,  or  trust  so  unquestionably 
the  thought  that  God  wrote  his  mind  out  in 
one  book  only,  or  that  his  redemptive  power 
is  limited  to  one  saviour  alone.  Madame  Leon- 
owens  went  as  a  teacher  to  the  court  of  the  king 
of  Siam,  hoping  that  she  might  convert  the  entire 
royal  household  to  Christianity,  but  there  she 
found  gentle  women,  lovely  lives,  finding  daily 
strength  at  the  flower-decked  shrines  of  Buddha. 


3o4  JESS 

Legge  went  to  China  with  his  Christian  lore, 
hoping  to  supplant  the  poorer  native  thought 
with  his  rarer  importation  of  the  spirit,  but  to 
his  surprise  he  found  there  such  noble  moralists, 
such  great  maxims,  such  high  teachings,  that 
he  gave  his  life  to  the  work  of  bringing  Chinese 
classics  within  reach  of  English  readers.  Edwin 
Arnold  went  to  teach  English  wisdom  to  India 
boys  at  Poona.  He  round  them  already  touched 
more  or  less  consciously  with  the  Light  of  Asia, 
and  he,  like  Madame  Leonowens,  Professor 
Legge,  and  many  others,  came  back  to  teach 
Europeans  and  Americans  to  climb  with  them 
the  Blue  Mounds  of  the  heart,  and  to  feel  ever- 
more that  God  has  gemmed  this  round  world 
with  gentle  lives,  that  every  land  is  bedewed  with 
the  tears  of  tender  ones. 

Frenchmen  and  Englishmen,  each  living  in  the 
valley  of  prejudice,  embitter  their  generation  with 
national  distrust  and  enmity,  but  Taine  climbed 
the  Blue  Mounds  and  attained  such  an  under- 
standing of  the  English  heart  revealed  in  English 
song  and  poem  that  he  was  able  to  give  to  the 
Englishman  himself  what  is  as  yet,  all  things 
considered,  the  best  interpretation  of  English  lit- 
erature. On  the  other  hand,  when  the  Parisians 


THE    UPLANDS   OF   THE   SPIRIT      305 

were  left  starving  for  bread  after  the  German 
siege  of  1871,  it  was  an  English  poet  delving 
among  the  neglected  French  archives,  who  found 
and  told  the  story  of  the  simple  heroism  of 
Herve  Riel,  the  Breton  sailor  that  balked  the 
English  fleet ;  and  he  did  it  so  well  that  he  was 
able  to  send  a  hundred  pounds,  the  price  of  the 
poem,  to  the  Paris  relief  fund.  Robert  Browning 
had  climbed  the  Blue  Mounds  of  the  heart.  He 
could  no  longer  be  content  with  the  stupid  hatred 
of  the  French,  but  invited  his  countrymen  up- 
ward and  taught  them  to  pray,  — 

"  Lead  me  to  the  Rock  that  is  higher  than  I." 

O  you  with  the  cruel  scorn  upon  your  lip,  the 
harsh  word  upon  your  tongue,  the  bitter  feeling 
in  your  heart,  remember  you  are  but  a  valley 
dweller.  Lie  no  longer  lazily  in  your  compla- 
cency, but  rise  and  climb  out  of  your  darkened 
valley  toward  the  Delectable  Mountains  over 
which  broods  the  loving  spirit,  where  nestles  the 
appreciative  mind,  from  the  top  of  which  it  is 
impossible  to  hate,  and  you  become  incapable  of 
meanness. 

But  there  are  still  other  heights  more  available 
and  if  possible  more  neglected  than  those  of 


3o6  JESS 

thought  and  feeling.  I  mean  the  Blue  Mounds 
of  duty,  the  heights  of  disinterestedness,  the 
table-lands  of  sacrifice.  We  are  all  born  under 
the  brow  of  these  heights,  reared  in  plain  view  of 
the  summit,  and  yet,  like  the  Wisconsin  farmer, 
we  are  each  forced  to  admit,  I  have  never 
found  time  to  go  to  the  top.  My  feet  have 
never  walked  the  blue  heights  where  self  is  lost 
in  infinitude,  personality  merged  in  the  eternal, 
and  life  forgets  its  limitations  as  it  tides  joyously 
outward  into  the  lives  of  others.  Duty  is  the 
great  vision-giver,  the  great  peace-maker,  the 
great  strength-restorer.  Without  it  the  privileges 
of  culture,  leisure,  home,  and  all  that  pertains 
thereto,  have  in  them  little  to  make  life  worth 
living. 

Duty  is  a  hilltop  word.  It  can  never  be  fully 
understood  except  by  those  who  frequent  the 
uplands  of  the  spirit.  There  is  a  temptation  to 
make  the  narrow  vision  appear  scientific ;  there 
are  those  who  love  to  reiterate  the  worn-out 
maxim  that  "  self-preservation  is  the  first  law  of 
nature,"  a  maxim  more  and  more  challenged  by 
science  and  already  so  qualified  that  it  ceases  to 
be  a  law  of  nature  and  becomes  instead  an  apology 
of  man.  Others  delight  in  reminding  us  that 


THE    UPLANDS   OF   THE    SPIRIT      307 

"  duty,  like  chanty,  begins  at  home,"  and  so  they 
fain  would  do  their  duty  by  excusing  themselves 
from  it.  These  cherished  maxims  must  be  taken 
up  into  the  Blue  Mounds  of  the  spirit,  the  up- 
lands of  consciousness,  before  we  can  read  any- 
thing out  of  them  but  a  lie,  a  blighting  lie  at 
that.  The  moment  that  we  attempt  to  care  for 
ourselves  in  a  way  that  has  no  care  for  the  larger 
self,  the  truth  of  God,  the  triumph  of  the  right, 
we  begin  to  die  like  a  girdled  tree,  and  all  the 
currents  of  the  life-giving  sap  are  interrupted. 
Any  duty  or  charity  that  begins  and  ends  in  a 
home  untouched  by  the  hilltop  interpretation  of 
that  home,  hurts  those  it  would  bless  and  blights 
what  it  would  sanctify.  Alas  for  the  child  grow- 
ing up  in  the  home  that  centres  in  his  little  wants 
and  narrow  dreams.  That  child  is  orphaned 
whose  indulgent  parents  move  in  the  petty  orb 
of  the  child's  selfishness  or  self-interest.  The 
parent  who  would  be  parent  indeed  to  his  children 
must  be  more  than  a  servant  to  them,  he  must 
pray  the  prayer,  — 

"  Lead  me  to  the  Rock  that  is  higher  than  I." 

Are  we  not  coming  very  near  the  kernel  of  the 
New  Testament  gospel  ?     Are  we  not  finding  the 


308  JESS 

secret,  the  open  secret  of  Jesus  ?  Did  he  not 
climb  the  rock  that  is  higher  than  his  selfish 
needs  or  indulgent  concern  for  surroundings  ? 
And  are  we  not  coming  very  near  to  the  central 
meaning  of  the  church  ?  Is  there  not  here  a  hint 
of  its  indispensable  work,  the  one  thing  alone 
which  justifies  its  existence  ?  When  it  fails  to 
become  a  Blue  Mounds  in  a  prairie  country  it 
had  better  not  be.  When  its  altars  cease  to 
represent  the  uplands  of  the  spirit  from  the  top  of 
which  the  devotee  may  catch  broader  intellectual 
outlooks,  wider  heart  horizons,  and  clearer  views 
of  duty,  it  had  better  have  no  altars. 

But  in  all  these  cases  there  are  no  outlooks 
available  except  to  those  who  are  willing  to  climb. 
The  fatigues  and  exposures  of  the  ascent  must  be 
faced.  There  are  no  patent-incline  railroads 
by  which  tourists  can  be  landed  upon  the  sum- 
mit of  the  uplands  of  the  spirit,  as  there  are 
upon  Mount  Washington,  Mount  Rigi,  and 
other  favored  resorts  of  high  altitude.  There 
are  none  such  to  the  Blue  Mounds,  by  which 
I  would  symbolize  the  church  of  God,  the 
church  of  consecrated  thought  and  holy  living. 
This  church  has  no  blessing  for  those  who 
fear  the  strain  and  who  would  avoid  the  dan- 


THE    UPLANDS    OF   THE   SPIRIT      309 

ger  of  climbing.  And  this  climbing  is  not  to 
be  achieved  by  any  active  outward  demon- 
strations. It  is  not  a  matter  of  generous  alms- 
giving or  diligent  hand-helpings,  though  these 
are  involved.  It  means  the  harder  thing,  the 
more  generous  judgment,  the  more  temperate 
enjoyment,  the  more  thoughtful  elevation  of  es- 
sentials, and  the  elimination  of  the  non-essentials, 
the  decorations  of  life.  Our  modern  life  is 
burdened  with  its  so-called  charitable  organiza- 

o 

tions  and  charitable  workers,  who  run  up  and 
down  the  world  trying  to  save  it  by  machinery. 
The  world  is  not  to  be  saved  by  institutions. 
It  is  to  be  saved  by  illumination,  the  overflow 
of  light,  the  diffusion  of  hilltop  radiance.  The 
Blue  Mounds  rise  into  sterility,  the  growth  on 
the  top  is  stunted,  but  its  use  is  not  to  be  tested 
by  its  capability  of  growing  corn  or  potatoes. 
As  a  mountain,  so  with  churches.  The  non-pro- 
ductive lands,  measured  by  our  dollar-and-cent 
standards,  are  the  most  available.  They  are  the 
most  useful  that  give  the  highest  life,  the  largest 
outlook.  Let  the  church  as  well  as  the  man  say, 

"  Not  on  the  vulgar  mass 

Called  'work,'  must  sentence  pass, 

Things  done,  that  took  the  eye  and  had  the  price. 


310  JESS 

"  O'er  which,  from  level  stand, 
The  low  world  laid  its  hand, 
Found  straightway  to  its  mind,  could  value  in  a  trice ; 

*T*  *T^  *I*  *T*  *J*  *f* 

"  Thoughts  hardly  to  be  packed 
Into  a  narrow  act, 
Fancies  that  broke  through  language  and  escaped : 

"All  I  could  never  be, 
All  men  ignored  in  me, 
This  I  was  worth  to  God,  whose  wheel  the  pitcher  shaped. " 

The  venerable  Professor  Lesley  of  Philadel- 
phia, on  retiring  from  the  presidency  of  the 
American  Association  for  the  Advancement  of 
Science  at  its  annual  meeting  in  1885,  made  a 
great  plea  for  the  value  of  what  is  known  among 
scientists  as  "  dead  work,"  that  is,  work  that 
requires  trouble,  patience,  and  endurance,  that 
yields  little  or  no  apparent  results,  but  without 
which  results  would  not  be  forthcoming.  Said 
the  toilful  geologist,  "  The  dead  work  which 
every  great  discoverer  has  had  to  carry  for  years 
and  years  unknown  to  the  world  at  large  before 
the  world  was  electrified  by  his  appearance  as  its 
genius,  is  the  important  condition  of  success." 
This  is  the  dead  work  to  which  the  church 
must  consecrate  itself,  the  patient  living,  the 


THE    UPLANDS    OF   THE   SPIRIT      311 

decent  doing,  the  self-sacrifice  grown  to  be  so 
habitual  that  it  becomes  life's  joyous,  daily 
path. 

Hurried  and  restless  is  the  life,  however 
abundant  in  its  outward  conditions,  that  rises 
every  morning  in  new  perplexity  as  to  whether 
selfish  inclination  or  high  duty  shall  decide  the 
day's  action,  when  duty  comes  into  conscious 
conflict  with  the  brilliant  opportunity,  the  rare 
chance,  or  the  gay  time.  Tiresome  are  the 
days  spent  in  trying  to  do  no  more  than  one's 
"  share  "  of  the  world's  work,  in  admitting  as 
few  as  possible  of  the  great  truths  of  life,  while, 
on  the  other  hand,  quiet  and  restful  and  calm  is 
the  life,  however  busy  and  outwardly  burdened, 
of  him  who  wakes  each  morning  to  the  simple 
tasks  of  the  uplands,  to  follow  the  mountain 
paths  of  duty.  He  whose  word  is  as  good  as 
his  bond,  and  whose  promises  are  as  sure  as 
human  strength  and  promptness  can  make  them, 
knows  but  few  of  the  distractions  of  life.  On 
these  uplands  of  the  spirit,  the  Blue  Mounds 
of  the  soul,  he  will  wake  to  the  fact  that  each 
one's  "  share "  of  the  world's  work  is  simply 
to  do  all  that  he  can,  in  every  way  he  can,  in 
every  place  he  can,  all  the  time  he  can,  tq 


Ji2  JESS 

help  the  world  along ;  and  this  he  must  do, 
though  all  the  rest  of  the  world  were  content 
to  live  in  indolence  under  the  shadow  of  the 
Blue  Mounds  whose  summit  they  refuse  to 
climb. 


I  fjabe  gone  tfje  insole  rounfc  of  creation:  I  safa  ant  3E  spofte: 
I,  a  foorfc  of  ©oti's  fjanto  for  tfjat  purpose,  receibetn  in  mg 
brain 

pronounced  on  tfje  rest  of  fjis  fjantfoork —  returned  fjim 
again 

is  creation's  approval  or  censure :  £  spofee  as  I  sato : 
report,  as  a  man  mag  of  (Bioti's  inork —  all's  lobe,  get  all's 
lain. 

I  lag  fcoirin  tfje  jutiges^ip  ^e  lent  me.    iEacf)  facultg 
tasfeeti 

perceibe  ijim,  |jas  gaineli  an  abgss,  inhere  a  fcefofcrop  iaas 
asfeeo. 

I  fenoinletjge  ?  canfounfceli  it  s^tibcls  at  O3isl>am  laiti 
bare. 

IE  foretfjausfjt  ?  fjoin  pttrtlinti,  fjain  felanfe,  to  tfje  Infinite 
ODare! 

©o  IE  tasfe  ang  facultg  ^igljest,  to  image  success? 
I  fotit  open  mg  eges,  —  anto  perfection,  no  more  ano  no  less, 
Jrn  t^e  Junto  3E  imaginetr,  full=fronts  me,  ant)  @oti  is  seen  (§00 
£n  tfje  star,  in  t^e  stone,  in  tfje  flesfj,  in  tfje  soul  anli  tfje  dob. 
Slnt)  tfjus  looking  iuitfjin  anb  arount  me,  3E  cbcr  rmeb) 
(SJEitfj  tfjat  stoop  of  tfje  soul  tofjicfj  in  fientiing  upraises  it  too) 
9Efje  submission  of  man's  notfjing=perfect  to  ©oti's  all=complete, 
&s  bg  eacfj  nebj  obeisance  in  spirit,  I  climb  to  fjis  feet. 

ROBERT  BROWNING. 


ELIZABETH  AND  HER  GERMAN 
GARDEN 

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THE   MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

66  FIFTH  AVENUE,   NEW  YORK 


BIRDCRAFT. 


A  FIELD-^OOK  OF  TWO  HUNDRED  SONG,  GAME, 
AND   IV ATE R  'BIRDS. 

By  MABEL  OSGOOD  WRIGHT, 

Author  of  "The  Friendship  of  Nature"  " Tommy-  Anne ,"  "Citizen  Bird,"  etc. 

With  Eighty  full-page  plates  by  Louis  AGASSIZ  FUERTES. 
Small  Quarto.    Cloth.    $2.50. 

PRESS  COMMENTS. 

"  This  is  a  charming  volume,  upon  a  pleasant  theme.  The  author  is  not  a  hard- 
hearted scientist  who  goes  forth  with  bag  and  gun  to  take  life  and  rob  nests,  but  a 
patient  and  intelligent  observer,  who  loves  the  children  of  the  air,  and  joins  their 
fraternity.  Such  a  book  inspires  study  and  observations,  and  encourages  effort  to 
acquire  knowledge  of  the  work  of  God.  The  book  is  a  wise  teacher  as  well  as  an 
inspiring  guide,  and  contains  beautiful,  well-arranged  illustrations." 

—  Ne-w  York  Observer. 

"  The  author  has  struck  the  golden  mean  in  her  treatment  of  the  different  birds, 
saying  neither  too  much  nor  too  little,  but  mostly  furnishing  information  at  first 
hand,  or  from  approved  authorities.  The  book  will  be  very  welcome  to  a  large 
number  who  have  felt  the  want  of  a  work  of  this  kind.  It  will  increase  their  enjoy- 
ment of  outward  nature,  and  greatly  add  to  the  pleasure  of  a  summer  vacation." 

—  Boston  Herald. 

"  This  is  the  third  edition  of  Birdcraft,  and  its  excellences  have  already  won  the 
commendation  of  all  naturalists.  .  .  .  Such  fineness  of  truth,  such  accuracy  of  draw- 
ing, could  only  be  the  work  of  genius  —  not  genius  which  is  simply  the  capacity  for 
hard  work,  but  genius  which  is  innate,  heaven-commissioned,  "  inbreathed  by  the  life 
breather,"  by  the  maker  and  teacher  of  man  and  nature  alike."  —  Inter-Ocean. 

"  Of  books  on  birds  there  are  many,  all  more  or  less  valuable,  but  Birdcraft,  by 
Mabel  O.  Wright,  has  peculiar  merits  that  will  endear  it  to  amateur  ornithologists.  .  .  . 
A  large  number  of  excellent  illustrations  throw  light  on  the  text  and  help  to  make  a 
book  that  will  arouse  the  delight  and  win  the  gratitude  of  every  lover  of  birds." 

—  Boston  Saturday  Evening  Gazette. 

"  The  book  is  attractive,  interesting,  and  helpful,  and  should  be  in  the  library  of 
every  lover  of  birds." —  Science. 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY, 

66  FIFTH  AVENUE,   NEW  YORK. 


DATE  DUE 


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